
G o 



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SONG AND SCENERY; 



OR, 



^ Rummer |(mnlrU in ^wtlani 



JAMES C. MOFFAT, 

PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN PKIN'CETON, NEW JERSEY; AUTHOR OF 
"a COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS." 



' Songs of my native Innd, 

To me how dear 1 
Songs of my infancy. 

Sweet to mine ear ! 
Entwined with my youthtul days, 
Wi' the bonny banks and braes, . 
Where the winding burnie strays, 

Murmuring near." 

BARONESS NAIRNE. 




NEW YORK: ; >s^-:jH; '; . ■ \ 
L. D. l^OBERTSON, 117 WALKER STREET. 
1874. 



Entereil according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S73. by 

L. D. ROBERTSON, 

in the oftlce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



%%5 
Hi (.1 






REV. JOHN MACLEAN, D.D., LL.D. 

EX-PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE 

^his li^olume is r^espectfully inscijibed, 
BY THE AUTHOR. 




CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Society at Sea — A Herald of approaching Death — Paths of the 
Ocean — Ireland — Lough Foyle — First sight of Scottish Land 
and Sea^Firth of Clyde, 9 

CHAPTER IL 

General Features of Scottish Scenery --Compared with Switzer- 
land — First sight of Edinburgh — Hawthornden — Roslyn — ■ 
William Dunbar — Abbotsford, . . . . . .20 

CHAPTER IIL 

Melrose — Cowdenknowes — Thomas of Erceldoune — Hawick— 
Teviotdale — John Leyden — Jedburgh — Kelso — Thomas 
Pringle — Berwick — Tweedside, 33 

CHAPTER IV. 

To Lindisfarne — The Island — The Ruins — The Missionaries from 
lona — Aidan — Finan — Conflict with Canterbury — Cuthbert — 
Posthumous Adventures of St. Cuthbert — Fate of Holy Island 
— Poetry about it, 44 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

Eskdale — Kirkconnel — Annandale— The Bruces — Ettrick— -The 

Ettrick Shepherd — Yarrow, 66 

CHAPTER VI. 

Lochmaben — The Castle of the Bruces — The Lochmaben Hai-per 
—Moffat— Craigie Burn Wood— The "Grey Mare's Tail"— 
Lanarkshire — The Douglas — Castle Dangerous, . . 76 

CHAPTER VII. 

Nithsdale — Burns— Allan Cunningham — The Randolphs — Gallo- 
way — Paul Jones — Sweetheart Abbey — Queen Mary's Last 
Journey in Scotland — Loch Ken — Mary's Dream — The Wild 
Scot of Galloway — Sir Archibald the Grim — The McClellans 
— The Gordons of Kenmure— Samuel Rutherford — Dr. 
Thomas Brown, ........ 86 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Southern extremity of Scotland — The Packman Poet — 
Castle-Kennedy — Viscount Stair — The Bride of Lammer- 
moor — Lochryan — Captain Ross — The Rover of Lochryan 
— First Church in Galloway — Ninian — Mission to Ireland 
—Port-Patrick, 100 

CHAPTER IX. 

Newton- Stewart — Glen Cree— A Picturesque Country — Alex- 
ander Murray— The Covenanters in Galloway — Old Mor- 
tality— Sir Walter Scott — Joseph Train, .... 120 

CHAPTER X. 

Hills of Carrick — The Land of Burns — The Doon — Ayr — Henry 
the Minstrel — Highland Mary — Burns— Paisley — Tannahill 
— Robert Allan — Glasgow — Kelvin Grove, . . . 134 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER XT. 

PAGB 

West Highlands— The Clans -Argyll— The MacCallum More- - 
The Land of Lome — The Macdougals— A general view of 
the Land of Ossian — Mull — The Macleans — Artornish 
Castle— The Macdonalds — Lord of the Isles — lona — Staffa, 149 

CHAPTER XII. 

Leading Clans of the Middle Ages — Dunstaffnage — The Stone of 
Destiny — Treaty of Artornish — The Macleans of Duart — 
Extent of their Dominion— The Lady Rock, . . . 166 

CHAPTER XIIL 

The Country of Ossian — Loch linnhe — Clan Stewart of Appin 
— Poems of Ossian — Glencae — Ben Nevis— Lochiel — The 
Cameron Country — Charles Edward Stewart — Rising of the 
Clans in 1745— Macdonald of Clan Ronald — Inverlochy, . 177 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Glenmore-nan-Albin— The Caledonian Canal — Culloden— Inver- 
ness — Macbeth — Macpherson's Farewell — "Where Gadie 
Rins," 191 

CHAPTER XV. 

Aberdeen — Beattie— Scenes of Byron's Childhood— Marischal 
College— Old Aberdeen — Barbour — Johnof Fordun — King's 
College — Hector Boetius — John Bellenden, . . . 20a 

CHAPTER XVL 

Howe of the Mearns — Lochlee— Alexander Ross — Strathmore — 
Montrose — The Great Marquis— His Highland Campaign — 
As a Poet — Perth — King James I. — Scottish Poets of the 
Fifteenth Century— Dundee — McCheyne — Religious Revi- 
val, 215 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGK 

St. Andrews — Her University — Knox — Buchanan — Sir David 
Lindsay — Poetry and the Reformation— St, Andrews in the 
Reformation — Dingin' doun of the Cathedral — Art and 
Religion, 231 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Sir Patrick Spens — The Historical Theme of that Ballad — Ballad 
Recitation — Origin of Scottish Popular Ballads —Scottish 
Love of Music, 244 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Linlithgow — Falkirk — Stirling ^ Stirling Castle — Greyfriars 
Church -The Cemetery — View from the Castle Battle of 
Stirling — Wallace as a General — Bannockburn — Resem- 
blance to Waterloo, ....... 258 

CHAPTER XX. 

King James V. — His Patronage of Letters -Friend of the Com- 
mons — Excursions among them — Lady of the Lake — Its 
Scenery — Loch Lomond — Dumbarton — Conclusion, . . 274 






PREFACE. 



A wide and interesting topic lies in the relations of 
man to his material abode. This volume touches only 
one point of it, and that in the slightest and most inci- 
dental way. 

The bonds of affection between us and external nature 
are of our own creating, are the tenderest and most con- 
trolling over those in whom imagination has the greatest 
power ; and yet are most practical for all ; and, in their 
various degrees, represent the intellectual character of 
nations. The love of a people for the land of their birth 
and residence is the spring of some of the noblest and 
purest features of human nature, and is strongest in the 
best. 

The scenery of a country always imprints itself more 
or less upon national character, while the character of an 
imaginative people arrays itself around their scenery, and 
clothes it like a garment. All their own most pleasing 
and highly valued thoughts and feelings they impute to 
their native land : they animate it with their own lives ; 



PREFACE. 

and their own noblest exploits, their heroism and their piety 
emblazon its localities. A reciprocity exists between a 
people and the land they occupy ; but that which is given 
varies, in relation to what is received, in proportion to the 
degree of intellectual activity and culture. Stupid bar- 
barians accept little, and return less. From them earth 
receives no attractive colors of human adventure, or of 
gentle and lovely affections. An educated and imagina- 
tive people identify their land with themselves and their 
history, and receive from it new inspiration for enterprise 
and virtue. 

Man and external nature, as seen in the light of imagi- 
nation, are the two hemispheres of the poetical world ; 
and that, no matter what the actual style of the scenery 
may be, — the rich plains of northern Italy, the blooming 
farms of southern England, or the mountains of Switzer- 
land and Savoy. It is a mistake to conceive of mountain 
countries as alone the abodes of song. The scenes most 
familiar to Shakspeare's eye, perhaps all he ever saw, are 
rich and fair, but of low level, nowhere more than rolling 
or hilly; and, although the poets of northern Italy had the 
Alps and Apennines in sight, it is remarkable how little 
they made of them. Their poetry finds its favorite themes 
among the cities and the plains. On the other hand, the 
poets of Greece, of northern England and of Scotland 
abound in imagery drawn from their picturesque scenery. 



PREFACE. 

They never tire in describing or alluding to their mountains, 
lakes, rivers, woods and seas, and the various atmospheric 
changes, the effects of sunshine and cloud among them. 

It may be as benevolent an arrangement of the Creator, 
as it is certainly a very remarkable fact, that some of those 
lands which have least to give for man's material being, 
elicit in the highest degree the allegiance of his heart. 
Such I think is the case of Scotland. The Scottish muse 
seems to love the border region where man and nature 
meet, and where nature exacts the most disinterested 
attachment. 

This love of material earth, this affectionate drapery 
thrown around it — notwithstanding Scotland's Puritanism 
— may it never be less, — I cannot think of as other than 
practical gratitude to the Creator, and would fondly believe 
that a pure enjoyment of the works of God in this world 
must have some tendency to prepare the spirit for the 
fuller enjoyment of them in a world which is holier and 
more beautiful. It surely added nothing to the sanctity 
of the most laborious saint of the middle ages that he was 
able to travel a whole day by the lake of Geneva without 
looking at it. 

Princeton, September, 1873. 



SONG AND SCENERY; 

OR, 

A Su7ii77ier Ramble iit Scotland. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM NEW YORK TO THE CLYDE. 

SOCIETY AT SEA — A HERALD OF APPROACHING 
DEATH— PATHS OF THE OCEAN — IRELAND- 
LOUGH FOYLE — FIRST SIGHT OF SCOTTISH 
LAND AND SEA — FRITH OF CLYDE. 

PLEASANTER company has seldom 
come together than that which met in 
the saloon of the steamship ''Anglia^' 
at noon of the nth May, 1872. From 
various States of the Union, from 
Canada, from Wales, from Ireland, from 
Scotland and from Germany, brought 
together only by the pursuit of their own respective 
ends, they showed from the first a light-hearted 
gentle courtesy, and sincere purpose to make each 




lO A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCO 7 'LAND. 

Other happy. A Hvely Httle steamer, crowded 
with friends of some of the passengers, ornamented 
with a semi-rainbow of flags, and resonant with 
song, accompanied us down the bay. Before 
reaching Sandy Hook, she came alongside, and 
received some who had remained with us, wilhng 
to postpone their parting to the last. After we 
had passed that final point of land, she closed in 
once more, and greeted us with the hearty chorus 
of " Auld Langsyne." Our pilot then left us, and 
with a farewell from the mouth of her cannon on 
the part of the ''Anglia^' and three sonorous roars 
from her engine, responded to with three emulous 
screams and a yell from our lively little convoy, 
we parted — the latter to return to the busy haunts 
of men, and we to pursue our lonely way into the 
wilderness of waters. 

Much as has been written and sung, and that 
very spiritedly, about "Life on the Ocean Wave," 
and of being ''Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," 
of " A wet sheet and a flowing sea," and all that, 
it must be admitted that the first experience of 
landsmen on the ocean wave is anything but 
poetical. The heaving breast of the mighty flood 
has very uncertain movements. For one accus- 



NEW YORK TO THE CLYDE. jj 

tomed to the steady land, to feel the footing- upon 
which he treads sinking and rising and rolling 
beneath him, overturns all his ideas. It effects, 
in some sense, a change in the constitution of his 
being — a radical revolution, which turns the world 
upside down. 

Our company was entertainingly varied, yet 
harmonious. Our captain, the most conspicuous 
figure, strong, burly and kind, ever on the alert, 
ever considerate of those under his care, yet ready 
to unbend in jocular conversation, won the respect 
and grateful affection of all. Some of our number 
were in pursuit of health ; some of knowledge ; 
some on business, crossing the ocean as they 
would the street to negotiate a promising bargain ; 
some of foreign birth, long resident in America, 
going to revisit the scenes of their childhood ; 
some on their way to the diamond mines of South 
Africa ; some to pursue the study of art in the 
galleries and schools of Europe ; one young lady to 
complete a musical education already apparently 
well matured ; one gentleman, a professional 
singer of the Parepa Rosa Troupe, to join the 
prima donna in some new engagement ; and four 
young ladies to make the tour of Europe by them- 



12 A SUMMER I^ AMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

selves — recent facilities for travel having rendered 
the attendance of a gentleman unnecessary to a 
lady's safety or comfort. An editor, a professor, 
and three clergymen are running off on a vacation 
trip ; and two young gentlemen, from the college 
of Gen. Lee, determined really to see the world, 
propose to ramble ad libitum through Europe, 
Africa, Asia and Australia, returning home by 
way of San Francisco and the Pacific Railroad. 
All with different aims, but all, for the time being, 
harmonised in the one purpose of making the 
passage of the ocean as tolerable as they can. 

With musical instruments on board, and no 
little musical talent, we were not lacking in the 
means of spending time pleasantly, and occasion- 
ally aimed at something better than killing it — 
the ordinary occupation of passengers at sea. 
For example, one or two enterprising spirits got 
up one evening a public entertainment for the 
benefit of the British Life Boat Association. It 
consisted of vocal and instrumental music, readings 
and recitations, grave, gay, tender and severe. 
Some of the songs were executed in really superior 
style ; but it docs not need high art to make 
people happy, when all are disposed to be pleased, 



NEW YORK TO THE CLYDE. jo 

and every one acts his part as well as he can, 
without pretending to more. The amount raised 
was a very respectable sum, which may be the 
means of saving some life endangered by the 
stormy deep. An entertainment so successful was 
confidently repeated, without the conditions of 
benevolence or payment ; and pleasure given and 
received united all in the bonds of intimacy, which 
would have taken months of acquaintance upon 
land to tie. 

The next day after leaving New York being 
Sunday, there was divine service on board, but few 
were in condition to attend upon it. Next Sun- 
day the congregation was large and reverential. 
If on any occasion the propriety of immediate 
trust in God is enforced by the circumstances of 
a man's life, it is when he travels over the wide 
waste of waters, with only half an inch of iron 
between him and death, and when any one of a 
hundred conceivable accidents might carry him 
instantly to the bottom of the deep. And yet 
that tumultuous and angry sea is not a more 
certain enemy of life than is many a one which 
we carry unawares within us. We had several 
services ; and all the clergymen took part in 



I A A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

them, save one. The case of that one was the 
only shadow of sadness which fell on our com- 
munity. An interesting young Irishman, who had 
just completed the theological course of study 
at Princeton, was returning to his native land, 
well equipped for the work of the gospel ministry. 
Endowed with information, both popular and 
recondite, much beyond the routine of the schools, 
his wit and keen good sense, with an easy but 
imobtrusive eloquence, soon made him a favorite. 
He and I were one day, in his state-room, in full 
flow of conversation. He had been entirely well 
since leaving America. I was getting well. We 
were expressing our gratification that we could 
now enjoy each other's society. Suddenly his face 
flushed an expression of astonishment and alarm. 
A pause of a moment, and the red stream from his 
lips stained the white basin. We exchanged looks. 
It needed no more. From that hour I never left 
his bedside for more than a brief time while he 
remained on board. The hemorrhage recurred 
several times. He was always cheerful, and often 
disposed to converse — a disposition which I endea- 
vored to restrain. When we entered Lough Foyle, 
a gentleman going to Belfast undertook to accom- 



NEW YORK TO THE CLYDE. jc 

pany him to his father's house. After we had helped 
him on board the Httle steamboat and it was turn- 
ing away, I saw him seated on deck. He looked up 
with an expression of tenderness, but smiled not ; 
nor intimated any farewell. I never saw him again. 
We corresponded while I was on the Continent. 
A long silence ensued. And then came a news- 
paper notice of his death — the history of that 
bright life, which seemed the promise of a more 
than common career, all summed up in two lines. 

The paths of ocean, to the great steamships 
which every day traverse them, are no longer 
varying and uncertain. With the far-seeing eye 
of the magnet, and the strong arm of steam, the 
iron ship holds her determinate way, for thousands 
of miles, like a locomotive on a railroad. In the 
face of head winds and an adverse rolling sea, 
continued daily from the time we left the coast of 
America, the gallant ''Anglia' plowed her way 
steadily and straight onward, as if she had seen 
and had never taken her eye off the point of her 
destination. 

One morning we awoke with a sense of relief, 
dressed without staggering, and deliberately at 
our respective convenience, ascended to the upper 



1 5 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

deck. The sky was clear, and though still early 
morning, the sun was up. There was only a 
gentle breeze, scarcely enough to ruffle the surface 
of the water. And yonder, on the right, are the 
bold headlands of Ireland. Our ship has seen 
aright ; and over hundreds on hundreds of miles 
of sea has aimed her course with precision to 
the true point. Onward still she sweeps, by the 
power of her throbbing heart of steam, within full 
sight of the land, the cloud-capped mountains of 
green Innisfail, past one headland after another 
between Innistrahull and Malin Head, round Innis- 
howen, and into the broad entrance of Lough 
Foyle, and then more slowly by old Greencastle 
and Magilligan's Point, to Moville. 

The magnificent beauty of Lough Foyle took 
most of us by surprise. On either side bounded 
by mountains, it extends to a width similar to that 
of Haverstraw Bay on the Hudson. From their 
base about three-fourths of the way to the top, the 
mountains are cultivated, and the humble but neat 
little farm houses are numerous, and climb up 
their sides nearly as far as cultivation goes. 

At Moville, we part with those of our company 
whose destination is L-eland. A small steamer 



NEW YORK ro THE CLYDE. 1 7 

comes out, and takes them up to Londonderry, 
whence by railway they reach their respective 
points of aim. 

Turning out of the Lough we sail near by the 
shore, round the Giant's Causeway, between Rathlin 
and the mainland ; and then from off Fair Head 
strike across the Northern channel to the Mull of 
Cantire. The Western Isles of Scotland, far in the 
distance, through the bright transparent atmos- 
phere, had been in sight from early morning ; we 
now surrendered Ireland for them. Passing near 
by the wild and rugged promontory of Cantire, 
and the little island of Sanda, we made a straight 
course for Arran, having the singular rock of 
Ailsa on the right. And now the distant coast of 
Ayrshire came more and more distinctly into 
view, its highly cultivated lands, its green and 
plowed fields, surmounted in the far back-ground 
by the blue summits lying at the sources of the 
Doon and the Ayr. On the left rose the long 
irregular array of peaks, among which stand 
wildest and highest the Goat Fells of Arran. It 
was a delightful sail, on that clear and beautiful 
afternoon, up the magnificent Frith of Clyde, hour 
after hour through ever-varying scenery. 



1 8 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

The sun went down behind the peaks of Arran 
as we entered the channel between the Island of 
Bute and the Cumbraes, but the long twilight of 
this Northern latitude deepened slowly. On either 
hand the lofty shores seemed gradually to draw 
nearer, and new mountain tops rose dimly before 
us. Sailing on into the depths of new scenery, we 
passed from the wild and picturesque into the 
mysterious. And as the shadows deepened, and 
the scenery ceased to be more than cloudy out- 
lines and dark masses, there flashed up in the 
distance long vistas of lights, whose reflection 
danced upon the water, and above the dusky tops 
of the hills, far on the northern sky, still lay the 
pale ray of the lingering twilight. We sought 
expression for our happiness in song. A few 
voices, richly endowed and cultivated, spoke for 
all, and those who listened accorded with and 
rested in the music as the expression of their own 
feelings. But music and conversation gradually 
subsided, and one after another of the company 
withdrew, though some continued gazing shore- 
wards in silence, and enjoying the beautiful and 
long-protracted twilight until it passed away into 
their dreams. 



NEW YORK TO THE CLYDE. Iq 

When morning dawned upon us, we were 
moored in the Clyde, surrounded by the wharves 
and residences of a busy city ; and though sorry 
to bring to an end the friendships formed on the 
voyage, and to say good-bye to the ''Anglia^' yet 
deeper feeHngs and purposes immediately asserted 
their place. We had reached a land which all 
were impatient to see, and which to many of us 
was hallowed by the sanctity of " Home." 



CHAPTER II. 

GENERAL FEATURES OF SCOTTISH SCENERY- 
COMPARED WITH SWITZERLAND — FIRST SIGHT 
OF EDINBURGH — HAWTHORNDEN — ROSLYN — 
WILLIAM DUNBAR — ABBOTSFORD. 

GOTLAND is the land of the pictur- 
esque. When I left it, now many, 
many years ago, only a corner of its 
least celebrated quarter had fallen 
under my observation. With that 
little corner I had nothing to compare. 
And in later times my recollections of it were 
cautiously toned down, from suspicion of youthful 
exaggeration. Ere I saw it again, chance even 
more than design had taken me through various 
countries, among others Savoy, Italy, and Switzer- 
land, celebrated for attractions of scenery. It was 
with a full breadth of delight that after all, when 
I looked again upon my native land, I found it 




THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 21 

more picturesque than recollection had dared to 
paint it. 

The further I pursued my journey the more 
was I impressed with the fact that the land of my 
birth is a beautiful land. From Inverness to 
Berwick-on-Tweed, its whole eastern coast is 
richly productive and cultivated in the highest 
style of science. The same culture covers the 
whole breadth of the island on the Forth and 
Clyde, and much of the Southwest. But most 
of the midland, and all the West Highlands are 
mountainous, abounding in rugged scenery and 
the baldest desolation. 

The grandeur of the Bernese Alps, or the Alps 
of Upper Savoy, is overwhelming ; Scotland has 
nothing to compare with them. But Switzerland 
is not so desolate as the West Highlands of Scot- 
land. Every place that can sustain culture is 
cultivated even to the verge of the everlasting 
snow; and in some places, where there is naturally 
no soil, it has been collected from among the 
rocks, carried up and deposited on terraces. In 
the Highlands of Scotland no such struggle is 
maintained. Belonging to a few large owners, 
the country is abandoned to its native wildness, 



22 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



as a great hunting ground. Only in the naturally- 
fertile glens is any culture to be discovered. One 
may stand upon a mountain and look, as far as the 
human eye can see in all directions, over that 
wilderness of dark, rocky, heathery mountains, 
with the grey mists flitting about them, intersected 
in every direction with deep glens, or with inlets 
of the sea winding away far into the land, and not 
behold one green field or cultivated spot. And 
yet when you travel through those wildernesses, 
you come occasionally, in the depths of the glens, 
upon a tasteful villa or a palace, surrounded by its 
pleasure grounds ; but quite as often upon the 
remains of earlier power and splendor, in the 
ruins of some ancient castle perched upon its 
dizzy steep. 

The principal features of Switzerland are over- 
whelming grandeur of scenery, and the industry 
of the human hand in conflict with Nature, and 
mastery over every rood of ground that can be 
mastered ; of Scotland, the wildness of Nature 
abandoned to herself wherever science and capital 
cannot make their profits. In the one country, 
humble but successful industry amid the most 
sublime of scenery ; in the other, scientific culture. 



THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 23 

where science has scope ; elsewhere, the bleakness 
and wildness of desolation, with here and there 
a palace. The present condition of Switzerland is, 
I think, better than that of the Scottish West 
Highlands, where great landowners have expelled 
their tenantry to make room for game ; but the 
latter country has, so far, the advantage in the 
striking contrasts which constitute the picturesque. 
It was not, however, by the natural scenery of 
Scotland that my admiration was kindled so much 
as by its associations with poetry. There are 
other countries whose history is more interesting 
and of higher value, and some whose natural 
attractions may excel it in any one of its features ; 
but none, I believe, except Greece, is so completely 
covered with poetic coloring. England has some 
poets greater than Scotland can claim ; but her 
land is not so swathed in song and its kindred 
music so cherished by her peasantry. The poets 
of Scotland have many of them been themselves 
peasants, and in a singular degree have wedded 
their respective localities to their verses. In the 
Southwest, you are in the land of Burns ; in the 
Highlands of Ossian, for no question of authorship 
extinguishes the poems, and they belong to the 



24 A SUMMER /GAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

scenery ; from Perthshire eastward, and southward 
to the EngHsh border, you are under the wizard 
spell of Scott ; and so elsewhere, every locality 
has its presiding genius of greater or less reputation. 
When a traveller comes in sight of Edinburgh, 
from either north or south, he is reminded of its 
picture in ''Marmion," in which the poet gives 
vent also to his own enthusiasm — 

"Where the huge castle holds its state, 
And all the steep slope down, 
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, 
Piled deep and massy, close and high ; 
Mine own romantic town." 

And as he draws near to its outskirts, perhaps he 
feels like striking up that old fashionable song, 

" Within a mile of Edinburgh town," 

if he has music in his voice to match the charming 
tune. As he ascends from the railway station into 
Princes Street, the first object to arrest his atten- 
tion is the Gothic monument of Sir Walter Scott ; 
and as he traverses that fashionable thoroughfare 
to the westward, he passes the monumental statue 
of Allan Ramsay, and a most spirited counterfeit in 
bronze of Professor Wilson. As he pursues his 
walks from day to day through the streets, and up 



EDINB UR GH—HA WTHORNDEN. 2 5 

and down the steeps of that really romantic town, 
and in its old churchyard, and its castle, and its 
palace, he feels himself lost among the multitude 
of classic memories. Great as the amount of prose 
to which Edinburgh is related, its affinities seem 
nearer to poetry. The very mists which float 
about the summit of the Pentland Hills, Arthur's 
Seat, and Salisbury Crags, seem to be of the 
cloud-land of fancy, rather than of the material of 
earthly fogs. 

Southward from Edinburgh, a few miles on the 
road to Peebles, the train stopped at a station for 
Hawthornden. The name was poetry, but it was 
familiar, as connected with the life of William 
Drummond. I stepped out, and inquired the way 
to his house. It was easily found. Many other 
travellers had made the same inquiry. Two hun- 
dred years have not effaced the memory of the 
gentle poet from the minds of his countrymen. 
A walk of a short distance along the public road 
brought me to a gate on the left hand. Upon 
entering and paying the fee, the porter handed me 
a ticket with directions. The poet's house, it 
seemed, was a fashionable pilgrimage, worth 
paying something to see. Along a fine carriage 



26 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

road I proceeded through a lawn, bordered and 
interspersed with trees, the whole rapidly inclining 
downward to the west, until I was soon in a glen 
considerably below the general level of the country, 
but still in well-kept pleasure grounds. At the 
end of che carriage road stood the house, on the 
brink of a lofty precipice over the Esk, which here 
runs in a deep ravine, both sides of which are cov- 
ered with trees. Hawthornden is a charming spot 
for any one enamored of seclusion in the bosom 
of Nature, the very place for a poet like William 
Drummond. A more romantic combination, within 
small space, of all the elements of "picturesque 
scenery is no where to be found than is presented 
by the banks of the Esk," at, and in the neighbor- 
hood of Hawthornden. Everything about the 
place is, after the lapse of so many generations, 
still redolent of the poet. Here is still the seat 
beneath the shade where he was sitting when Ben 
Johnson, who had walked all the way from London 
to see him, arrived, and here the trees planted by 
his own hand are still growing. 

His house was built upon the foundation, and 
took in a part of the old castle which in mediaeval 
times stood on the edge of the cliff; and beneath 



ROSLYN CASTLE. 27 

it are the caverns which once gave protection to 
the occupants of the castle in times of danger. 
They have been roughly hewn out by art, with 
openings in the face of the precipice for admission 
of air and light. Beneath the first, there is a 
second story down about half way to the bed of 
the river. Within later days the whole has been 
touched by the genius of one greater than 
Drummond. In the ballad of *' Rosabelle," the 
mysterious light portentous of evil to the house of 
St. Clair, 

Which "glared on Roslyn's castled rock," 
Which " ruddied all the copsewood glen. 

Was seen from Dryden's groves of oak, 
And seen from caverned Hawthornden." 

Decending by a rustic footpath, I continued my 
walk through the "copsewood glen" until I reached 
the banks of the Esk ; then crossing the little 
river by a footbridge, I followed the western side 
in a similar way up the stream among the rocks 
and trees. A guide encountered me, whose ser- 
vices I declined, advising him to wait for a party 
coming on behind me, who most likely needed his 
help more than I desired it. The path itself led 
to Roslyn Castle, a stout old ruin on its isolated 



28 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

rock, overhanging the Esk, and connected with 
the country on the same side of the river only by 
a bridge. But its principal charm for me was 
what it derives from the beautiful old song and 
tune which bear its name, dear to me from the 
recollections of boyhood. 

After wandering all around and in the dank 
and gloomy ruin, I ascended the hill, on which 
stands Roslyn Chapel. That little church, the 
only part ever erected of a great design, is one of 
the most exquisitely finished and adorned to be 
found in Europe, and still in perfect preservation. 
But profoundly sensible as I was of all that beauty 
hewn in stone, I thought more of the poetry which 
clothed it, and wedded it to the fortunes of the 
St. Clairs of Roslyn Castle, as I stood over the 
vault where 

" Roslyn's chiefs uncofifined lie; 
Each Baron, for a sable shroud, 
Sheathed in his iron panoply," 

and of the mysterious light which issued from it 
on the eve of misfortune to that illustrious family, 
when it 

** Seemed all on fire within, around 
Deep sacristj and altar's pale, 
Shone every pillar foliage bound, 

And glimmered all the dead men's mail ; 



WILLI A M D UNBA R. 20 

Blazed battlement and pinnet high, 
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair , 

So still they blaze when fate is nigh 
The lordly line of high St Clair." 



Leaving Roslyn Chapel I crossed to the eastern 
side of the Esk, and joined the railroad at Roslyn 
station. 

By another road, a few miles farther to the 
east, I went on southward, whereby I had on my 
left the old town of Dalkeith and its palace, in 
early times the seat of the Earls of Morton, the 
scene of many a stirring event in Scottish history, 
and now the residence of the Duke of Buccleuch. 
But taking a tenderer hold of my heart than either 
nobility or statesmanship, not very far off in the 
same direction lay the birthplace of William 
Dunbar, four hundred years ago the greatest poet 
of his time in the English language. I had that 
morning left behind me the scene of more than 
one or two of his poems in the old palace of 
Holyrood. 

While still meditating upon the great gifts and 
humble fortunes of him, who in more senses than 
one, had "fallen on evil times ;" and how in those 
ages when genius had to look to patronage for 



30 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

support, the Samsons of intellect were often 
degraded, seduced by necessities to *'play on to 
make" sport for Philistines, I discovered that with 
the rapidity of steam we were already desending 
by the course of the little river Gala. There came 
up the associations of poetry, but, in this instance, 
of popular song, in the once familiar words and 
music of " Braw Lads o' Gala Water." Gala, how- 
ever, has other associations now, near its junction 
with the Tweed, not so attractive to the fancy, 
though more profitable to the body, in the cloth 
factories of Galashiels. 

But by way of balance to that too material 
good, a short distance up the Tweed from where 
the Gala enters it, stands Abbotsford, that 
"romance in stone and lime," created by the 
master of modern romancers. The sight of that 
structure calls up a world of poetry to the mind of 
any one acquainted with the writings of its author 
— and who is not .? It was built with poetry, it was 
furnished with romance, itself the birthplace of 
the most fascinating and manly of romances, and 
the scene of one, the most manly of all, the tragic 
epic of the author's own last years. 

Abbotsford is not of palatial size, but is a spa- 



ABBOTSFORD. ^I 

cious house, as compared with most of American 
villas. Although in its outside and general 
aesthetic effect, a product of imagination — a poet's 
dwelling, its inner arrangements are laid out with 
supreme regard to convenience. The study, the 
principal object of interest to a visitor, is small 
but cosy, and opens conveniently on the same 
floor into the library, and has a gallery running 
round it at about half the height of the ceiling, 
from which, at a corner, opens a door into Scott's 
bed-room. The dining-room has a large bow- 
window looking to the north. In front of it is a 
smooth, green lawn ; and beyond that flows the 
Tweed. On the opposite bank of the river, the 
ground is higher, and further off rises to such ele- 
vation as may be called a mountain. Some low 
trees are strewed along the banks of the Tweed, 
but not so as to obstruct the view of the river from 
the window. That room is the most cheerful on 
the first floor, and to it, so the guide told me, Sir 
Walter in his last illness had his couch removed, 
and there died. And the statement was probably 
correct. For in Lockhart's ''Life of Scott" it is 
mentioned that on his return from Italy, in a greatly 
debilitated state of both mind and body, a bed had 



22 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCO TLA ND. 

been prepared for him in the dining-room. I was, 
then, standing by the place where Sir Walter Scott 
saw his last sight of this world, and could not but 
think of Lockhart's description of the death scene. 
" It was a beautiful day — so warm that every 
window was wide open — and so perfectly still, 
that the sound of all others most delicious to his 
ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its peb- 
bles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the 
bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes." 
The day when I stood by that window was simi- 
larly bright and calm ; I listened for the murmur 
of the Tweed, which, though low, I could plainly 
hear. Productions of the mind owe their interest 
chiefly to its own affections ; but how much is 
that interest enhanced when we find them also 
truthful to reality. 



CHAPTER III. 

MELROSE — COWDENKNOWES — THOMAS OF ERCEL- 
DOUNE— HAWICK— TEVIOTDALE— JOHN LEYDEN 
— JEDBURGH — KELSO — THOMAS PRINGLE — 
BERWICK — TWEEDSIDE. 

ELROSE ABBEY is only three miles 
from Abbotsford, down the Tweed. 
From the residence of the wizard of 
the nineteenth century, I passed to 
the fane where lies buried the wizard 
of the middle ages — Michael Scott. 
I stood by his tomb, where the moss-trooper 
Deloraine, upon prying open the grave-stone, was 
dazzled by the elfin splendor from the face of the 
dead. A double or three-fold coloring of romance 
and poetry lies over that whole region — the 
religious romance of the middle ages, the barbaric 
romance of Border warfare and its spirited ballads, 
and the richer and brighter coloring of the '* Lay 

C 




34 



A SUMMER K AMBLE IN SCOTLAND 



of the Last Minstrel." All have left their traces 
in the ruins of the beautiful old Abbey ; in the 
adjacent Eildon hills, whose three summits are the 
work of familiar spirits at the command of Michael 
Scott, in popular traditions and in poetry which 
the public will not suffer to die. 

Three miles from Melrose eastward, and on the 
river Leader, lies the estate of Cowdenknowes, 
the subject of an old song, of which nothing- now 
remains save the tune and four lines of the 
chorus : 

"With O the broom, the bonny, bonny broom, 
The broom o' the Cowdenknowes." 

Later times have produced other words, and 
plenty of them, for the air, which, however, still 
retains its old name of the Cowdenknowes. The 
broom, not commonly known in the United 
States, is the plantagenesta, a graceful feathery 
shrub, of deep green color, with bright golden 
blossoms. Although latterly subjected to humble 
household service, its name at one time stood 
among the highest places of power. For Geofrey, 
Duke of Anjou, was wont to wear a sprig of the 
plantagenesta in his cap ; and Geofrey became 
the father of the Plantagenet dynasty of English 
kings. 



THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE. jj 

The green and gold of the broom has now 
been removed from the Cowdenknowes to make 
place for turnips and pasture, but the simple air 
has not been erased from the music of Scotland. 

Following the course of the Leader upwards, 
one comes, at the end of about a mile, to the 
ancient village of Earlston, formerly Erceldoune, 
the residence of the earliest poet, as far as now 
known, in the English language. Thomas, the 
Rhymour of Erceldoune, died before the year 
1289, and inasmuch as it appears that he was 
nearly, if not altogether, as old as the century, it 
may be presumed that his principal poem was 
composed several years before that date, and must 
be now full six hundred years of age. That poem, 
if it really is his, the only one of his production now 
extant, is the metrical romance of Sir Tristram. 
It has not been preserved entire, but what 
remains of it amounts to over three hundred 
stanzas of eleven lines each, and of singular and 
difficult structure. Though few are acquainted 
with it now, and fewer still are able to read its 
obsolete English, yet it was worth while for it to 
live so long, if but to suggest the idea of the 
metrical romance to Sir Walter Scott. 



36 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

By mistaking the train I was taken to Hawick, 
in the end right glad of the mistake, as it took me 
into the very heart of the scenes of border adven- 
ture. Not knowing where I was, upon stepping 
out of the cars, I asked the guard, " What Httle 
river is that?" ** That, sir, is the Tee'ot." I 
shook my head. The name had no relation to 
anything in my knowledge. ** Some people," he 
added, " call it Teviot." Ah, that was a different 
thing — that was like the wand of a magician, 
bringing all Chevy Chase to mind. For the follow- 
ers of the Douglas in that affray were 

"All men of pleasant Teviotdale, 
Fast by the river Tweed." 

Or, as the older set of the ballad has it : 

"They wear twenty hondrith spearmen good, 
Withouten any fayle ; 
They wear born a-long by the water a-Tweed, 
Ythe bowndes of Teviotdale," 

Having some two or three hours to wait for the 
returning train, I pursued my walk up the river on 
the hillside above the town of Hawick, where quite 
unexpectedly I came into the neighborhood of 
Branxholme Castle, the principal scene of the 
*' Lay of the Last Minstrel," and the once redoubt- 



TEVIOTDALE. 



37 



able fortress of the Scotts of Buccleuch. Yes, that 
was the place, however, now changed externally 
to suit modern taste and comfort, and surrounded 
by peaceful fruits of prosperous industry, where the 
rude heroes of four hundred years ago used to 

" lie down to rest 

With the corselet laced, 

Pillowed on buckler cold and hard, 
Where they carved at the meal with gloves of steel, 
And drank the red wine through the hemlet barr'd." 



The distance over which I had travelled from 
1] 
For 



Melrose was the night ride of William of Deloraine 



" When Hawick he passed had curfew rung," 

and as he reached his journey's end the 

"Midnight lauds were in Melrose sung." 

But when I looked upon the peaceful and beauti- 
fully cultivated lands around me, and the prosper- 
ous manufacturing town, it was with gratitude to 
God that I felt the days of barbarity were over. 

" Sweet Teviot ! on thy silver tide 

The glaring bale-fires blaze no more ; 
No longer steel-clad warriors ride 

Along thy wild and willowed shore ; 
Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, 
All, all is peaceful, all is still, 

As if thy waves since time was bom, 
Since first they rolled upon the Tweed, 
Had only heard the shepherd's reed, 

Nor started at the bugle-horn." 



38 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Hawick lies in a little valley on the Teviot, 
surrounded by cultivated mountains, forming an 
amphitheatre, open only where the river and its 
confluent stream, the Slittrig, enter, and where it 
flows out. The arena of the amphitheatre is 
almost entirely filled by the town, a busy manufac- 
turing place, which, without any advantages of 
location, has been raised to its present prosperity 
by the sheer force of enterprise. The hills are 
ploughed, or lying in green pastures, or planted 
with trees over the summits, with only here and 
there a patch of furze on some spot perhaps 
deemed irreclaimable. 

A short distance down the river stands the 
village of Denholm, the birthplace of John Ley- 
den, a man whose variety and breadth of attain- 
ment left too little of his brief life for produc- 
tion. With a facility in acquiring languages, not 
second to that of Sir William Jones, or Professor 
Alexander Murray, he excelled also in natural 
science, and published poems which elicited the 
admiration of Sir Walter Scott. In fondness for 
mediaeval and ballad poetry he resembled Scott 
and afforded him important assistance in collecting 
the " Border Minstrelsy." His longest poem, 



HAZELDEAN— JEDBURGH. ^q 

" Scenes of Infancy," is descriptive of his native 
vale, binding together the flowers in the poetic 
coronal of the Teviot. 

Opposite Denholm, on the left side of the river, 
lies the winding dell of Hazeldean, connected with 
several old songs, but best known from the spirited 
ballad, "Jock o' Hazeldean." A few miles further 
down, on the right side, and some two miles from 
the Teviot, lies the town of Jedburgh, more cele- 
brated than honored by tradition for its peculiar 
justice in making sure of the execution of a culprit 
quickly, and deliberating upon the merits of his 
case at leisure. But "Jeddart justice," in those 
days of violence, was not always confined to Jed- 
burgh. The ballad called " The Raid of the Red 
Swire" celebrates, I believe, the last act of border 
warfare in that quarter. 

But gentler associations were also there. For 
in the same shire of Roxburgh, though on the 
other side of the Tweed, lie the little parish and 
village of Ednam, where the poet of the Seasons 
was born, and learned his first lessons in the 
reading of Nature. And at Kelso, where the 
Teviot joins the Tweed, were spent the earlier 
days of Alexander Hume, one of the so-called 



40 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

uneducated poets of Scotland, who merits respect- 
ful mention for the purity and gentle pathos of his 
songs ; and of Thomas Pringle, the original pro- 
jector oi Blackwood' s Magazine, and author of the 
well-known poem, ** Afar in the desert I love to 
ride." Although Pringle's literary labors were 
carried on chiefly in Edinburgh, yet, when he left 
his native land for South Africa, it was attach- 
ment to Teviotdale which called forth the song of 
farewell : 

" Our native land — our native vale— 

A long, a last adieu ; 
Farewell to bonnie Teviotdale 

And Cheviot's mountains blue. 
Farewell ye hills of glorious deeds, 

Ye streams renowned in song ; 
Farewell ye braes and blossomed meads 

Our hearts have loved so long." 

At Kelso I spent a night and morning close 
beside the ruins of its Abbey, one of the pious 
foundations of King David I. ; and with still more 
interest looked upon the place where Walter Scott 
commenced his literary career, and his friend 
Ballantyne first set up his press, and issued the 
first edition of ** The Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
Border." 

From Kelso to Berwick the way lies still within 



FLODDEN FIELD. 4 1 

the formerly debateable land between England 
and Scotland, a land full of the memories of a 
barbarous history, and of atrocities which it sickens 
the heart to recount, and yet the birthplace of a 
ballad literature the most spirited in the English 
language. In the middle ages, from the side of 
England, the minstrel was commonly referred to 
the ''North Countrie," and in the south of Scotland 
the favorite lilt was "Some ancient Border gather- 
ing song." As preserved in Percy's and Scott's 
collections, many of them have long taken their 
place as classics in that department of poetry. I 
was now traversing a large part of the scenery of 
**Marmion." A short way above where we crossed 
the Till, the battle of Flodden was fought, and 
not far off, on the other hand, it was that, on the 
succeeding night, 

*' Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash, 

While many a broken band 
Disorder' d through her currents dash, 

To gain the Scottish land ; 
To town and tower, to down and dale, 
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale, 
And raise the universal wail." 

Beyond the Till, we stopped at a way station for a 
few moments. At a short distance, on a high 



4 



^ A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



bank over the Tweed, stood a massive ruin. 
Within myself I felt that I knew it ; but to make 
sure, asked a person standing by. " That is 
Norham Castle," was the reply. I knew it was. 
Sir Walter Scott's descriptions seldom fail in 
accuracy — 

"Day set on Norham's castled steep, 
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, 
And Cheviot's mountains lone." 

They were all there ; the very picture before me 
In the distance to the south rose the long ridge of 
the Cheviots, as desolate and lone, to all appear- 
ance, as in the time for which the picture was 
drawn. 

In the long-continued wars between the two 
kingdoms the city which suffered most was Berwick- 
upon-Tweed. Repeatedly torn from Scotland and 
added to England, and from England to be restored 
to Scotland, it was finally constituted a separate 
dominion. And so it has stood for more than 
three hundred years, a witness to the conflict which 
rent it from the shire to which it gives name. 

But, after all these warlike and barbarous asso- 
ciations with the past, one can hardly take leave of 
" Tweedside " without thinking of the old pastoral 



TWEEDSIDE. 



43 



love song of that name — a very favorable specimen 
of the sentimental style of song fashionable in the 
last century, and less insipid than its fellows^ 
because deriving some of its imagery from the 
song of Solomon : 

"What beauties does Flora disclose, 

How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed ! 
Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those, 
Both Nature and fancy exceed. 

Come, let us go forth to the mead. 
Let us see how the primroses spring ; 

We'll lodge in some village on Tweed, 
And love while the feather'd folks sing. 

'Tis she does the virgins excel. 

No beauty with her may compare ; 
Love's graces around her do dwell, 

She's fairest where thousands are fair. 

Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray ? 

Oh, tell me at noon where they feed ; 
Shall I seek them on sweet winding Tay, 

Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed ? " 



CHAPTER IV. 

TO LINDISFARNE — THE ISLAND — THE RUINS — THE 
MISSIONARIES FROM ION A — AID AN — FINAN — 
CONFLICT WITH CANTERBURY — CUTHBERT — 
POSTHUMOUS ADVENTURES OF ST. CUTHBERT — 
FATE OF HOLY ISLAND — POETRY ABOUT IT. 

ROM Berwick-on-Tweed, down the 
eastern coast of England, I hied with 
the joyous speed of steam, one cool 
but sunny morning of early June. To 
our right were the hills of the Cheviot 
range, and on our left the shining 
waters of the German Sea. I was 
now in ''mountainous Northumberland," at one 
time a strong Anglo-Saxon Kingdom ; but far 
wider and more poetically known as the Northum- 
berland of the Percies, from which they so often 
issued to ravage the farms of their northern 
neighbors. The same adventures sung on the 




HOL Y ISLAND. 45 

Tweed and the Teviot were here recounted from 
the other side. 

Beale, seven miles from Berwick, is the station 
for Lindisfarne. And to Lindisfarne I wanted to 
go. But Beale is only a station. No village is 
there, no hotel, no livery stable, nor aught that 
takes any notice of travellers except the station 
master. Beale is a farm, large and productive, 
but the farm-house is at a considerable distance 
from the railroad, and has nothing special to do 
with it. There is no public conveyance to Lindis- 
farne. Tourists have not found it out, or their 
time has not yet come. No accommodations are 
made with a view to them. When the train had 
passed and I was left there alone, the station 
master politely interested himself in my enterprise, 
and informed me that there were two ways of 
getting to Holy Island. One was by walking 
about a mile to the coast, and then wading the 
sound and wet sands, at low tide. The second 
was by procuring the help of a returning fish-cart. 
I preferred the latter. A vehicle of that kind was 
at hand — the only one. Gladly I took a seat with 
the fisherman, and mounted on an empty oyster 
barrel made the rest of my pilgrimage to the 
Holy Isle. 



^6 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Lindisfarne is an island, and never really a 
peninsula, notwithstanding what a poet says who 
is not often wrong in a description. The nuns 
of Whitby, as related in Marmion, arrived here 
at high water. 

"The tide did now his flood-mark gain 
And girdled in the saint's domain ; 
For with the flow and ebb the style 
Varies from continent to isle ; 
Dry-shod o'er sands twice every day 
The pilgrims to the shrine find way : 
Twice every day the waves efface 
Of staves and sandaled feet the trace." 

This is in the main correct, inasmuch as the 
great expanse of sandy flat between the island and 
mainland is at one place left uncovered at low tide, 
but at no time of the day can one pass it dry-shod. 
He has to wade for a short distance through 
shallow water, and further through shallow mud. 
At high water the sound is, at the same point, 
not less than two miles wide, if not more. This 
partial connection with the mainland is the 
northern part of the direct west channel ; its 
southern part is always under water ; and the 
channel on the south side of the island is deep 
enough to float ships of considerable size. 



LINDISFARNE. aj 

Lindisfarne, now generaly called Holy Island, 
although the old name is also in use (the people 
know it by either), is about seven miles in circum- 
ference, and consists chiefly of rock and sand hills. 
There is some good arable land on it, and a neat 
little village. Both are on its southern side, 
where also the rocks rise highest. The occupa- 
tions of the people are chiefly those of the fisher- 
man and sailor. The island makes the north side 
of a bay, the south side of which is the cape where 
Bamborough stands. The old castle of Bambo- 
rough, upon its lofty rock, is full in view. That of 
Lindisfarne, upon a similar rock, but not so large, 
is near the southern extremity of the island. 
And on the same southern shore, but at its western 
corner, rises an elevated and precipitous rocky 
embankment, like a protecting wall. North of 
that natural rampart stand the ruins of the old 
ecclesiastical buildings. They begin close at its 
foot, and cover a large space of ground. 

No part of the ruins is in condition to be used for 
residence, but they are of much more extent and 
importance than I expected to find. The cathedral, 
which is probably the most recent, appears by 
its style to be of great antiquity. Enough remains 



48 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. ' 

to declare the plan, style and size of the building. 
Of the usual cruciform shape, and of the same 
mottled brownish yellow sandstone, at first sight 
it reminds one of Melrose, but is neither so 
large nor so beautiful. It has the appearance 
of being more ancient, and is in nearly the 
same state of ruinous preservation. Most of the 
architecture is of the Saxon variety, the pillars are 
short, and most of the arches semicircular. Only 
the three large windows of the choir are pointed. 
The greater part of the west front and of its 
south side tower remain, also the first story of the 
north wall of the nave, with two pillars of the 
corresponding side aisle, and one of the piers which 
supported the central tower, with the arches 
between them, and the architrave above, but only 
the bases of the other three pillars on that side. 
On the south side all the nave is gone, except part 
of the bases of the pillars, and the wall, in its 
whole length, but only a few feet of its height. 
Of the transept on the south side a large part of the 
eastern wall remains, and the pier which on that 
side supported the central tower. It is diagonally 
opposite to the only other remaining central pier, 
and the arch between them, called from its airy 



LINDISFARNE ABBEY. ^g 

lightness, the rainbow arch, has been recently 
repaired. Of the direct arches only a few feet 
remain from the springing points. In the transepts 
the walls are sufficiently preserved to determine the 
size and form of that part of the structure. 

The choir is unusually long, in proportion to 
the nave, and is more completely preserved, 
though the whole roof is gone. The arch of the 
great east window is pointed, by the intersection 
of such large curves, that the first impression upon 
the observer is almost that of a triangle, and the 
effect stiff and ungraceful. Two great side win- 
dows, opposite each other, north and south, are 
also pointed, but so flat as to vary little from a 
consecutive curve. Two small windows on each 
side of the choir, between the large ones and 
the transepts, are covered by semicircular arches. 

The height of the west front wall is between 
fifty and sixty feet, as near as I could judge, and of 
the tower and transepts about the same. There 
is part of a spiral stone stair in one corner of the 
central tower, which seems to have led to the top, 
also in each of the front towers. 

The reddish brown and pale yellow sandstone 

of which the Abbey is built is much worn by the 

D 



qo A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

action of the weather. The other buildings, of a 
simpler architecture, apparently a plain chapel 
and dwelling houses with inclosure walls, are still 
more deeply weather-worn, as they seem to be 
more ancient. The inclosure is a large quadrangle, 
of which the Abbey occupies the northern end, 
and the great natural embankment limits the 
southern. 

When Aidan first planted his residence on this 
little ungainly isle, he contented himself with an 
humble thatched cabin. His successor built a 
better church of hewn oak covered with reeds. 
And several other improvements followed succes- 
sively before the beautiful Abbey rose. Yet it 
bears the features of Saxon times, and of having 
been enlarged or repaired when the Gothic style 
was yet only beginning its career. 

"In Saxon strength the abbey frowned, 
With massive arches broad and round, 
That rose alternate, row and row, 
On ponderous columns short and low, 

Built ere the art was known, 
By pointed aisle and shafted stalk. 
The arcades of an alleyed walk 

To emulate in stone. 
On the deep walls the heathen Dane 
Had poured his impious rage in vain ; 



LINDISFARNE. cj 

And needful was such strength to these, 
Exposed to the tempestuous seas, 
Scourged by the winds' eternal sway, 
Open to rovers fierce as they. 
Which could twelve hundred years withstand 
Winds, waves, and northern pirate's band. 
Not but that portions of the pile, 
Rebuilded in a later style, 
Showed where the spoiler's hand had been ; 
Not but the wasting sea-breeze keen 
Had worn the pillar's carving quaint, 
And mouldered in his niche the saint, 
And rounded, with consuming power, 
The pointed angles of each tower ; 
Yet still entire the abbey stood, 
Like veteran worn but unsubdued." 

No longer unsubdued now, the veteran, who suc- 
cumbed not to an enemy worse than himself, has 
given way to a power which is better. 

From the top of this natural embankment, 
where I stand, a fine view is obtained of the whole 
island and adjacent coast of Northumberland, 
from near Berwick to as far south as Bamborough 
and the Fame Islands. At the foot of the embank- 
ment, on its south side, flow the waters of th ^ 
sound, and from its foot on the northern side 
spread the ruins ; then beyond a little strip of 
meadow, lies the village ; then a few cultivated 
fields, and finally, sand hills to the ocean boundary 



C2 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

on the north. This is the western side of the 
island. On the east of where I stand is the harbor ; 
then along the coast, a plain, as far as to the castle, 
which is mounted upon a lofty rock rising precipi- 
tously out of the plain, and close by the sea. It 
is the highest point of the island, which otherwise 
consists of flats and low undulating mounds. It is 
an uninviting island, and seems to have been 
constructed by the waves of the German Sea, 
rolling down from the north, and heaping up the 
sand in bank after bank against the ledges of 
rocks, which form the foundation of its southern 
side. Not a single feature that can properly be 
called beautiful belongs to it ; and yet few places 
on this northern coast of England are possessed 
of an interest equal to that of Lindisfarne. Nor in 
coming down these seven miles south of the 
Tweed have I departed form the romantic and 
poetic history of the Northern Kingdom. All 
that makes Lindisfarne an object of special interest, 
or ever drew the eye of the historian or poet to it, 
is due to Scotland. Its attractions belong to the 
early history of the church, and the church of Lin- 
disfarne was the child of lona. 

Oswald, a young Anglo-Saxon prince, during a 



MISSIOiVA RIES FR OM ION A . r ^ 

residence in Scotland was converted to the gospel. 
Upon coming" to the throne of Northumbria in 635 
A. D. he sent to the elders of the Scots, desiring 
that they would send him one by whose instruction 
the nation whom he governed might be taught 
the Christian faith. They complied with his 
request. Their first missionary was unsuccessful, 
and returned to lona discouraged, whereupon they 
sent Aidan, a man whose zeal was equaled by his 
prudence. Upon his arrival, King Oswald assigned 
him for residence this little unattractive island. 
It was the missionary's own choice — a choice 
determined perhaps by the situation of the island 
resembling that of lona, from which he came. 

Aidan was accompanied and followed by a 
number of Scottish missionaries, who with great 
devotion preached the gospel, and planted churches 
in those counties over which King Oswald reigned. 
And their humble house on Lindisfarne was their 
common home, their place of rest when sick or 
weary, and of meeting for consultation, and mutual 
support in devotional zeal. Northumbria in a few 
years became a Christian country, and money for 
erection of churches was liberally furnished by the 
King. 



CA A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Some of the fellow-laborers of Aidan were lay- 
men ; but laymen or clergymen, their daily employ- 
ment was reading the Scriptures and committing 
them to memory. A group of islets called the 
Fame Islands, lie from seven to nine miles from 
here, to the south, and immediately off the coast 
from Bamborough. Upon one of these did Aidan 
build himself a cell for more recluse retirement, in 
special seasons of prayer and meditation. 

Upon the death of King Oswald in 642 A. D., 
his head was taken to the church of Lindisfarne. 
When Aiden died, nine years afterwards, he was 
succeeded by Finan, also from lona, who, prosecut- 
ing the work so well began, carried the victories of 
his cause far into the centre of England, and with 
his fellow missionaries, set up churches in the 
Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, and a new missionary 
centre in its capital, the modern Repton, in 
Derbyshire. 

Other laborers from lona followed, and minis- 
ters were ordained from their English converts, 
who pushed forward the work in the same spirit, 
until all the east of England, and much of its 
center, as far south as Tilbury-on-the-Thames, was 
brought over to Christianity. 



CONFLICT WITH CANTERBURY, 55 

lona was then in the prime of her activity and 
success. And the worship she taught, although 
burdened with some superstitious observances, was 
nearer the primitive simplicity of the gospel than 
any other in the seventh century. But a fatal con- 
flict was already begun. 

While Aidan and his assistants were itinerating 
and preaching in the north of England, a similar 
process, but conducted with vastly greater tem- 
poral force, was advancing from the south. Forty 
years before the planting of the church on Lindis- 
farne, a company of Romish monks had landed on 
the coast of Kent. At their head was the monk 
Augustin, commissioned to that service by Pope 
Gregory I. They found an ally in the Queen of 
Kent, who had learned Roman Christianity at the 
court of her father, the King of France. Her 
persuasives converted her husband, and the con- 
version of the nation soon followed. Kent becom- 
ing Christian, a centre of missionary effort was 
planted at Canterbury ; and thence, during the 
next seventy years, progress was made, from nation 
to nation, northward. While the clergy of Lindis- 
farne were pursuing their work from the north, 
they were encountered by the advance of this 



^6 ■ A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

movement from Canterbury. A conflict ensued. 
But the strength of LIndisfarne, backed only by 
the mother church In lona, was ill-matched with 
that of Canterbury, having forty years start in the 
race, and backed by all the resources of Rome. A 
new stationary camp for the southern interest was 
constituted at York, from which the campaign for 
reducing the north was to proceed with renewed 
energy. Treason in the ranks of the northern 
ministry accelerated the victory of Rome ; and, 
before the seventh century came to a close, the 
stronger power had completely established its 
authority in England. At a synod held in the 
monastery of Whitby, 664 A. D., Lindisfarne was 
left in so small a minority that her influence imme- 
diately began to decline, and Colman, her third 
principal, from Aidan, with a small number of those 
who adhered to the old discipline, withdrew to his 
native land. Tuda, his successor, attempted to 
compromise, retaining partly the practices of lona, 
and yielding on some points to the Romanists. 
But no half-way measures would satisfy the party 
now strong enough to carry their own. Tuda also, 
in the issue of controversy, returned to Scotland ; 
and an Abbot of Melrose, but of English birth, was 



CONFLICT WITH CANTERBURY. ^y 

set over the vacant church. Entire conformity 
was not estabHshed until 685 A. D., when Cuthbert 
became the principal, and submitted in all things 
to the stronger force. Lindisfarne became an 
abbacy under the Romish system, and all its 
peculiar distinction came to an end ; subsequently 
afterward even the diocesan authority assigned 
to it was transferred to Durham. 

The memory of Cuthbert has accordingly been 
loaded with the crowning extravagance of legend, 
as relating to Holy Isle. The weight of his name 
was to be used for the purpose of withdrawing the 
last remnant of authority from the institution over 
which he had presided. He died at the retreat on 
Fame Island, 688 ; but was buried in the church of 
Lindisfarne. After the lapse of eleven years, 
Divine Providence, it is said, put it into the minds 
of the brethren to take up his bones, intending to 
put them into a new coffin, for the honor due to 
him. To their most pious surprise, they found the 
"body whole, as if it had been alive, and the joints 
pliable, more like one asleep than dead ; besides, 
all the vestments he had on were not only sound, 
but wonderful for their freshness and gloss."* 

* Bede, Ecclesi. Hist., iv. c. 30. 



^8 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

To this story, which may not have varied greatly 
from the truth, subsequent creduHty or imposture, 
or both, made astounding additions. It was then 
asserted that, fleeing from an invasion of the Danes, 
in A. D. 793, the monks carried with them the 
body of their favorite saint. He proved to be a 
fastidious corpse, and for years gave them no rest. 
So difficult was he to be satisfied with a place of 
burial, he constrained them to carry him through 
most of the south of Scotland, without giving 
any intimation of just where he wanted to be put. 
In desperation they concluded to take him to Ire- 
land ; but that he could not stand, and raised such 
a storm at sea that they were glad to put back. 
Thinking that he might be, or at least ought to be, 
satisfied in the holy ground at Melrose, they took 
him there. He remained stationary only a short 
time, and then, taking a new start, caused himself 
to be launched upon the Tweed, in a canoe hewn 
out of stone, in which he floated down to Tilmouth. 
Thence on the shoulders of his bearers he paraded 
through Northumberland and Yorkshire, as far as 
Ripon, thence back northward to Durham. There 
he became immoveable, and chose to deposit all 
the savor of his sanctity. Durham, accordingly, 



ST. CUTHBERT. to 

became the seat of the episcopate, and Lindisfarne 
ceased to be anything more than a Monastery of 
the AngHcan Romish Church. 

The controversy, which terminated in the 
defeat of Lindisfarne, was concerning the time and 
order of keeping Easter, and the rules of ecclesias- 
tical life ;^ the Romish party seeking to introduce 
those observed in their church, instead of the 
simpler and more ancient which had been brought 
from lona. 

Finan's old thatched house, after having under- 
gone many repairs, one of which was the substitu- 
tion of lead for thatch, was finally removed to 
make way for this cathedral structure, the founda- 
tion of which was laid in 1094 A. D. 

In these broad ruins I read nothing of Lindis- 
farne's best days. They are the witnesses of her 
subjugation and bondage — that long period in which 
Cuthbert was her patron saint. There, things 
were done and taught as they were done and 
taught everywhere else in monastic institutions. 
Immaculate and transcendant sanctity being the 
profession, whatever would mar that reputation had 
to be crushed out of sight. Men and women who 

* Bede, iii. c. 25. 



5o A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

lived there must be held up before the world as 
holy, for on that the success of the cloister 
depended. Some of them must be even miracu- 
lously holy ; and their holiness of a kind unattain- 
able in other walks of life. If not, what was the 
use of the monastery 1 Salvation as a gift of grace 
anybody may receive ; but salvation by dint of hard 
striving, and perfection of good works, is an attain- 
ment of enormous difficulty, which only the few 
can make, and for which they deserve all honor and 
credit. And if a saint succeeds in laying by a 
wealth of righteousness more than enough for his 
own salvation, why should not the surplus be 
applied to the deficiency of some poor sinner who 
lacks } And if it is, why should not that poor sinner 
pay the saint a portion of adoration } Upon that 
impression did the success of the monastery depend. 
For where else but in a monastery could such 
holiness be accumulated } Such saints were the 
heroes of their respective institutions ; and monks 
and nuns 

" essayed to paint 
The rival merits of their saint, 

A theme that ne'er can tire 
A holy maid ; for be it known, 
That their saint's honor is their own." 



THE NUN OF LINDISFARNE, gj 

The following little poem, published in Fraser s 
Magazine some forty years ago, is a good picture 
of a kind of merit they used to teach here, though 
drawn by a modern pen : 

THE NUN OF LINDISFARNE. 

Young Linda sprang from a lofty line ; 

But though come of such high degree, 

The meanest that knelt at St. Cuthbert's shrine 

Was not so humble of heart as she, — 

Her soul was meek exceedingly. 

She told her beads by the midnight lamp ; 

Forlorn she sat in the cloister damp. 

For the veil and the vows of a nun she had taken. 

Soft were the visions from on high 

That passed before her saintly eye ; 

Sweetly on her ravished ear 

Fell the sound of music near, — 

Music more lovely than vesper's hymn. 

Or the strains of starry cherubim. 

Or the witching tones of melody sent 

From sweetest earthly instrument. 

Her thoughts were radiant and sublime, 

And ever arose to the heavenly clime; 

Her aspirations sought the sky 

Upon the wings of piety; 

For more divinely pure were they 

Than morning of a summer day. 

Or the snow-white cloud that sleeps upon 

The pasture-crowned top of Lebanon. 

To visit this maiden of mortal birth 
An angel of heaven came down to earth. 



62 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

He sought, the spot where the holy maid 
In vestal snow-white was arrayed, — 
'Twas in the chapel dim and cold 
Of Lindisfarne's black convent old. 
Each nun hath heard the convent bell, 
Each nun hath hied her to her cell ; 
Linda alone, with her glimmering lamp, 
Will not forsake the chapel damp. 
Rapt in delicious ecstasy. 
Visions came athwart her eye ; 
Music on her ear doth fall 
With a tone celestial ; 
And a thousand forms by fancy bred, 
Like halos hover round her head. 
But what doth Linda now behold 
From that chapel damp and cold ? 
She sees — she sees the angel bright 
Descending through the fields of light ; 
For although dark before, the sky 
Was now lit up with a golden dye, 
And wore a hue right heavenlye. 

"Daughter of earth," the angel said, 

"I am a spirit— thou a maid. 

I dwell within a land divine ; 

But my thoughts are not more pure than thine, 

Whilome, by command of Heaven, 

To me thy guardianship was given ; 

And if on earth thou couldst remain 

Twice nine years without a stain. 

Free from sin and sinful thought, 

With a saint-like fervor brought, 

Thy inheritance should be 

In the bowers of sanctity, 

Side by side forever with me. 

Thou hast been pure as the morning air. 

Pure as the downy gossamer — 



THE NUN OF LINDISFARNE. 5^ 

Sinful thought had never part 
In the chambers of thy heart — - 
Then thy mansion house of clay, 
Linda, quit, and come away," 

Morning heard the convent bell, 
Aud each nun hath left her cell ; 
And to chapel all repair 
To say their holy matins there. 
At the marble altar kneeling, 
Eyes upraised unto the ceiling, 
With the cross her hands between, 
Saintly Linda's form was seen. 
Death had left his pallid trace 
On the fair lines of her face ; 
And her eyes that wont to shine 
With a ray of light divine, 
At the chant of morning hymn, 
Now was curtained o'er and dim. 
Pale as alabaster stone — 
" Where hath Sister Linda gone ? " 

Linda was a self-made saint, it seems, owing 
nothing — at least nothing worth speaking of— to 
a Saviour ; one of the kind that never needed any 
repentance ; but a good ideal of a certain order of 
Romish saints. 

Poetry has also depicted another aspect of that 
cloister life. Would that it had been only poetry. 
But the sins of the cloister must be concealed from 
the laity, and the chances of exposure be buried 
where they never can rise again. The fate of 



64 A SUMMER K' AMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Constance de Beverley, who "died at Holy Isle," 
with its attendant circumstances, as described in 
the second canto of Marmion, is not history, but it 
is fearful truth, in the sense in which a parable is 
true. Lindisfarne was a monastery ; a cloister for 
men, not for women. Scott honestly states that 
his nunnery at Holy Isle is fictitious. But although 
the scene of convent punishment did not take place 
here, it is one which fact abundantly justifies the 
poet in referring to the times when cloisters were 
high in honor. 

An indescribable interest warms the heart to 
all the footsteps of long departed human life. But 
as I sit upon this lofty embankment, on the stone 
seat from which pilots watch the neighboring sea, 
and look upon the broad and varied scene of 
Nature spread around, and down upon these remains 
of mediaeval monasticism, I experience a sense of 
relief in that the latter are ruins, beyond the hope 
of restoration, and that the dismal state of society, 
which gave occasion to their erection, is gone, 
never to return. The Christian world is learning 
more intimately of Nature, and more immediately 
of Christ. And if anything as bad as the cloister, 
as artificial and ^//^human, should ever again invade 



FATE OF HOLY ISLE. 5c 

the Church, it is to be hoped that educated men 
will counteract it, by taking refuge in the free out- 
door life of Nature, as Scott relieves the mind of 
his reader, after the oppressive scene in the judg- 
ment vaults of that now delapidated temple, and 
with the equally out-door colors and more glorious 
freedom of the teaching of Christ. 



CHAPTER V. 

ESKDALE — KIRKCONNEL — AN NAN DALE — THE 
BRUGES — ETTRICK — THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD 
— YARROW. 

N active pedestrian, who walks not on 
principle and for exercise, but because 
he takes pleasure in the use of his 
limbs, may enjoy an exhilarating- ram- 
ble among the upper waters of the 
Teviot, and over the hills, into the 
wilds of Westkirk, or of Eskdalemuir. 
The mountains, though bare, and not overwhelm- 
ingly sublime in elevation, are majestic, and cleft 
by many a romantic glen. And when he reaches 
one of the summits commanding a view of the 
western side, he will see far below, and opening 
away to the south, between its banks of wild and 
broken hills, the contracted but lovely vale through 
which flows the Southern Esk. And if he looks 




ESKDALE. 5^ 

with the eyes of a reader of Scottish history and 
fiction, he will perhaps behold more than the 
mountains, more than the wild tossed uplands, 
and more than the winding vale in the midst of 
them ; he will see the hues of romance, and of 
traditionary history, which has long ago become as 
good as romance, spread over all. For that is the 
Eskdale of the Avenels and Rosedals and of others 
of mediaeval fame. From the tops of these moun- 
tains east to the tops of yon mountains northwest, 
and all the way down between them to the plains, 
did good King David I., in consideration of 
military service, bestow upon his Norman friend, 
Robert Avenel. And this Upper Eskdale, now 
lying at our feet, is the donation piously made by 
Robert Avenel to the Monks of Melrose, before 
he hung up his well-worn sword, and joined their 
" cowled society." His heirs might well be satisfied 
with what remained, for Lower Eskdale seems by 
far the more valuable portion of the two. The 
possessions of the Avenels in course of time passed 
into other hands, those of the Rosedals, of the 
Douglases, and later of Maxwells, and Armstrongs, 
all families of Border renown, and each having a 
more or less romantic history of its own. 



68 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

When our pedestrian descends from the hills, 
and, joining the road from Ettrick, makes his way, 
along the banks of the Esk, to the lower country, 
he still has not forsaken the region of romance. 
For the road takes him right into the heart of 
Langholm, and by the now ruined castle of the 
Armstrongs. And there is the holm of Langholm, 
where "Johnnie Armstrong and his gallant com- 
pany of thirty-six men," when going to meet King 
James V., 

" Ran their horse and brak their spears." 

The bold freebooter believed that his monarch 
would be glad to receive his submission when 
frankly offered. King James ordered him to excu- 
tion. It was perhaps wisely done, but not in the 
spirit which the public of that day admired. 
Johnnie Armstrong's reputation accordingly re- 
ceived the popular sympathy, and minstrels found 
him a favorite theme. 

Here, also, in this same parish of Langholm, is 
the birthplace of William Julius Mickle, translator 
of ** Camoens," and author of some good original 
poems. Among those which occur to memory 
most readily is the fine ballad of " Cumnor Hall," 
which had the honor of suggesting to Sir Walter 



KIRKCONNEL. 5q 

Scott the groundwork of his romance of Kenil- 
worth ; and that exquisite song, *' There's nae Luck 
about the House," which has touched more hearts 
than his translation of the ** Lusiad," and is likely 
to carry further on the flight of time. 

A little further south lies " Canobie Lee," 
where, of course, one thinks of the **lost bride of 
Netherby." And a finer ground than Canobie Lee 
for "racing and chasing," after a runaway bride, 
one need not desire. Just over the English Border 
is Netherby Hall ; and the road we are following 
leads down, by Gretna Green, to '* Merry Carlisle." 
But as we have no design upon the Bishop's wine, 
nor desire to imitate "The Witch of Fyfe" and 
her " Auld Gudeman," nor to see how "The sun 
shines fair on Carlisle wall," we shall turn from 
Canobie westward into Kirkpatrick-Fleming, the 
old parish of Kirkconnel, and pass through to the 
beautifully wooded banks of Kirtle. There, 
although there is much to charm the eye, in the 
improvement which art has made upon nature, 
more interest attaches to a tale of human affection. 
It is one of a long time ago, but has not lost its 
hold upon the hearts of the people of that quarter. 
They can still point out the place, on the banks of 



70 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



Kirtle, where the tragedy occurred. Here it was 
that Helen Irvine and Adam Fleming were walk- 
ing together, when a disappointed rival aimed a 
gun at the accepted lover, and ''Fair Helen," 
rushing to his bosom to protect him, received the 
bullet in her own heart. Again, there is the spot 
where Fleming, frenzied with grief and revenge, 
overtook the murderer, and slew him with the 
sword. But his own peace was ruined. The 
dreadful scene could never be banished from his 
mind. He went abroad, and served in foreign 
armies ; and returned only to die. His grave, 
beside that of Helen, is still pointed out in the old 
churchyard of Kirkconnel. 

The first cast of the ballad was his own com- 
position — a simple, earnest utterance of the deso- 
lation of woe, written perhaps in some far distant 
military camp : 

"I wish I were where Helen lies, 
Where night and day on me she cries, 
I wish I were where Helen lies, 
On fair Kirkconnel lee. 

I wish my grave were growing green, 
My winding sheet put o'er my een, 
I wish my grave were growing green, 
On fair Kirkconnel lee. 

Where Helen lies, where Helen lies, 
I wish I were where Helen lies, 
Soon may I be where Helen lies, 
Who died for love of me." 



ANNANDALE. 7 1 

This is not art. These are sobs rather than 
verses. Their words drop like heavy tears. Other 
hands have pursued the theme with more skill ; 
but there is a direct intensity in these lines, which 
tells of a terrible reality. In the light of art the 
finest song on the subject is that by John Mayne 
of Dumfries, author of the ''Siller Gun." 

In an excursion up Annandale, I found myself 
still in the region of Border adventure and song, 
and of what, as a subject of song, has been more 
fertile and more national, the fortunes of the Bruce. 
It was as lords of Annandale that the forefathers 
of that royal dynasty became Scotch. Originally 
they were Norman. The first Robert de Brus 
came into England with the Conqueror. His son, 
constituted lord of Annandale by favor of David I., 
King of Scotland, was followed by a line of baronial 
Bruces, who ruled on Annan over two hundred 
years. One of them by marrying the heiress of 
Carrick greatly enlarged the possessions of his 
house. It was his son who became the liberator 
and King of Scotland, and conferred its heroic 
reputation on the name. 

Just over the hills which bound the upper part 
of Annandale on the east, extends Ettrick Forest, 



J 2 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

the birthplace and residence of James Hogg, poeti- 
cally designated the Ettrick Shepherd, although, 
in fact, that epithet is no more poetical than 
it is biographical. For the man was a shepherd 
and a sheep farmer all his days, and successful 
as he was in literature, never aimed at anything 
else. Ridicule of his rustic manners, no doubt, 
marred the effect of his genius, upon many, in his 
own days. A self-reliant and fertile intellect, 
fearless in expression, more accustomed to com- 
mune with itself, among the hills, than to consider 
the ways of men, and until late in life, inexperi- 
enced in the fashions of society, could hardly fail 
to suffer in that way. But there were not a few, 
and those of the highest calibre, who estimated 
him truly. Not in depicting life and its common 
characters and motives did his strength lie, but in 
lyrical expression, and especially in that region 
of the supernatural, where human life exists with- 
out its earthly conditions, and all its affections are 
spiritualized, good or ill, and seen as in a dream. 
In that he holds a peculiar dominion of his own. 
Many of his songs also have been long and widely 
popular among his countrymen. That a man, 
whose condition in life was so lowly, and his edu- 



THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. ^3 

cation so defective, that, at twenty-six years of 
age, he had to teach himself to write the alphabet, 
should, by the time he was of middle life, take his 
place, as a respected associate in literary labors, 
with Pringle, Wilson, Scott, Southey and Words- 
worth, is one of the most extraordinary facts in 
literary history. He was not a Burns, it is true ; 
there is a power, a passion, and breadth of man- 
hood in Burns, with a maturity of self-culture, 
which spurns all consideration of circumstances ; 
but, if we are to say who is second, of all the 
peasant poets none can dispute the place with the 
Ettrick Shepherd. 

A handsome monument to his memory stands, 
most appropriately, on the shores of St. Mary's 
lake> in the heart of the district he has honored. 

All that belt of country along the Ettrick and 
Yarrow, from Annandale to Tweed, has, like many 
other parts of his native land, been colored by his 
romances, his metrical tales and songs. It is a 
highly favored region in that respect. St. Mary's 
lake and Yarrow stream have attracted the love 
of poets in old as well as recent times. The 
Yarrow has been more frequently the theme of 
song, chiefly plaintive, than any other river in 



74 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Scotland. The loneliness of the vale through 
which it flows, and the sadness of the legends 
associated with it, seem to be in keeping. And 
so, also, is the poetry: — "The Douglas Tragedie," 
the " Song of the Outlaw Murray," the old fragment, 
''Willie drowned in Yarrow," Logan's poem, "Thy 
braes were bonny. Yarrow Stream," and the 
oldest verses of the "Yellow-haired Laddie," as 
well as the song by Hamilton of Bangour, beginning 

"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride, 
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow." 

Perhaps most of all, an ancient ballad called the 
"Dowie Dens of Yarrow," may have given the key 
to this chorus of plaintive song. Allan Ramsay's 
"Braes of Yarrow," McDonald's "Yarrow Vale," 
and the songs which celebrate Mary Scott, "The 
Flower of Yarrow," are in the same spirit. 

The older songs have themselves received a 
consecrating touch from the pen of Wordsworth, 
who has written three of his sweetest poems on 
the Yarrow. And truly when one looks upon 
the little river so much and sadly celebrated, he 
feels impelled to adopt the language of the later 
poet : 



THE YARROW. 

And is this Yarrow? — This the stream 

Of which my fancy cherished, 
So faithfully, a waking dream ? 

An irhage that hath perished ! 
O that some minstrel's harp were near, 

To utter notes of gladness, 
And chase this silence from the air, 

That fills my heart wiih sadness ! 

' But thou, that didst appear so fair 

To fond imagination, 
Dost rival in the light of day 

Her delicate creation : 
Meek loveliness is round thee spread— 

A softness still and holy ; 
The grace of forest charms decayed, 

And pastoral melancholy." 



75 



CHAPTER VI. 

LOCHMABEN — THE CASTLE OF THE BRUGES — THE 
LOCHMABEN HARPER — MOFFAT — CRAIGIE BURN 
WOOD — THE "GREY MARE'S TAIL" — LANARK- 
SHIRE — THE DOUGLAS — CASTLE DANGEROUS. 

NNANDALE, more regularly con- 
structed than Eskdale, is a beautiful 
valley stretching from the plains by the 
Solway northward, some thirty miles 
into the heart of the mountains, 
between two parallel ridges, which 
slope off on either side, like vast 
earthen embankments. And from the summits on 
the one side to those on the other, its average 
width is about fifteen miles. It was a right royal 
donation which King David I. made to his friend 
Robert Bruce, when he created him lord of 
Annandale. In the eleventh century the land was 
not cultivated as it is now ; but any moderate 




LOCHMABEN. yy 

culture this rich soil will repay with abundance. 
The old castle of the Bruces at Lochmaben was 
planted in the midst of its best. The builders of 
that structure must have counted on a good incomes 
to keep it up in proper style. It is now in utter 
desolation, the best of its materials being carried 
away ; but even those diminished ruins show that 
the castle with its outworks must have covered 
about sixteen acres. This old fortress, the 
strongest on the Border, stood upon a peninsula 
in a lake, with a deep fosse crossing the isthmus, 
and receiving the waters of the lake at each end. 
Within that, at brief intervals, were three other 
fosses of the same kind, all, no doubt, at one time, 
furnished with their respective drawbridges and 
other means of defence. The baronial Bruce was 
not easy of access, when at home. 

There has been poetry about Lochmaben, as 
must be about the birthplace of the liberator king ; 
but I am sorry to say that the people thereabouts 
evince little sense of it. They have stripped that 
magnificent ruin of all that was characteristic in its 
architecture, and left it little more than masses of 
rubble-stone and mortar. For ages it has been 
their quarry, when they wanted shapely stone. 



7^ 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 



Lochmaben people, I think, may be well repre- 
sented, as far as poetry is concerned, by the ballad 
of the ''Lochmaben Harper." Their minstrel was 
blind, but made his way to Carlisle Castle, where 
he succeeded, with his music and ballads, in 
holding the attention of all, gentry and servants 
alike, until late into the night. He then, to rest 
his hands and voice, slipped out for a few minutes, 
and went to the stable where his mare was stalled. 
He had left her foal at home. Tying the halter 
of the Warden's finest charger round her neck, he 
let them out, and, having seen them fairly on the 
road to Lochmaben, returned to his harp. His 
lay was now very plaintive ; but not too soon did 
he make known the cause of his grief. 

" Allace ! allace ! quo' the cunning auld harper, 

And ever allace the day I cam here ! 
In Scotland I lost a braw cowt foal ; 

In England they've stown my gude grey maxe ! 
Then aye he harped, and aye he carped : 

Sae sweet were the harpings he let them hear, 
He was paid for the foal he had never lost, 

And three times ower for his gude grey mare." 

That was a strain which must have met the keen 
appreciation of his townsmen. At the same time, 
if any gentle reader who traces his descent from 
Lochmaben, casts his eye over this paragraph, I 



ANNANDALE. ^g 

wish him to understand that I speak here only 
about the poetry — and its practical aim — not the 
stealing. I should be sorry to have him think of 
retaliating upon his neighbors. Most of us who 
claim descent from the Border are not fond of too 
close inquiry into the history of our distant fore- 
fathers. There are points we would rather waive. 
Living in glass houses, we prefer to compromise. 
A gentleman with whom I am acquainted, in fol- 
lowing up his paternal genealogy — in a loose and 
disconnected way, would have his friends under- 
stand — was discouraged from the pursuit, when 
he got as far as the minority of James V., by find- 
ing a man of his name — not, he thinks, connected 
with his particular line — of whom Buchanan says 
that the Regent earned much esteem by executing 
him. For he was a /a^ro insignis — in plain English, 
a great thief. 

In looking into this matter one day, without 
any purpose of research, I fell in with the following 
quotation from Bellenden's translation of Boece: — 
* In Annandail is ane loch namit Lochmaben, fyve 
mylis of lenth, and fourr of breid, full of uncouth 
fische. Besyde this loch is ane castell, under the 
same name, maid to dant the incursion of thevis. 



go A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

For nocht allanerlie in Annandail, bot in all the 
dails afore rehersit ar mony Strang and wekit 
thevis, invading the countre with perpetual thift, 
reif, and slauchter, when they se ony trublus tyme. 
Thir thevis (becaus they have Inglishmen thair 
perpetual ennymes lyand dry marche apon thair 
nixt bordour) invadis Ingland with continewal 
weris or ellis with quiet thift, and leiffis ay ane pure 
and miserabill lyfe. In tyme of peace, thay ar so 
accustomit with thift, that thay can nocht desist, 
bot invadis the countre with ithand heirschippis." 

Many benefits have accrued to England and 
Scotland from their union. National peace, 
national wealth, and the turning of enterprise into 
profitable channels, have been promoted all over ; 
but on their common border there must be added, 
safety in the careful culture of land formerly waste, 
and above all, the improvement of morals, public 
and private. 

At the northern extremity of Annandale, and 
on the base of the Hartfell, the highest mountain 
m the south of Scotland, stands the fashionable 
watering place of Moffat. It possesses three min- 
eral springs, of which the favorite one is about a 
mile and a half from the town. Although the 



THE ''GREY MARE'S TAIL.'' gl 

water is brought down in pipes, and can be had at 
the hotels, it is thought to be of greatest virtue 
when drunk at the fountain head, after walking to 
it. On a fine summer morning that walk up the 
hill-side is perhaps as healthful as the water. 
Recommended as remedial of impaired health, 
these waters are sought, and the place frequented, 
like other such places, more by persons whose 
object is to enjoy or abuse the health they have. 
It was here that Burns' well-known Bacchanalian 
song was written, when 

"Willie brewed a peck o' maut, 

And Rab and Allan cam to pree." 

The Hartfell, with his group of subordinates, 
here blocks up the great avenue of Annandale. 
Further north the only passage is by a gorge. 
Mountains bleak and wild stand about Moffat and 
its adjoining plain in a semi-circle like a theatre. 
The three rivers which meet in the plain below, 
and form the Annan, all descend to it through 
mountain gorges, more or less picturesque. "The 
wild and terrific wilderness along the upper part of 
the Moffat-water is the scene of many a stirring 
tradition respecting the gatherings and hidings of 
the persecuted Covenanters, and their narrow and 



82 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

romantic escapes from the bloodhound pursuit of 
Claverhouse and his dragoons." On a tributary to 
the same river is a celebrated cataract, called the 
'' Grey Mare's Tail," by which the waters issuing 
from Loch Skene, one thousand feet above sea 
level, are precipitated over a stupendous ledge of 
rocks four hundred feet in height. It is the sub- 
ject of one of Sir Walter Scott's inimitable descrip- 
tions. The " Grey Mare's Tail " is eight miles 
and a half from the town of Moffat ; and in going 
to it, one passes over a variety of interesting 
scenery — Craigie Hill, down by Craigie Burn, and 
through the shades of Craigie Burn wood, the sub- 
ject of one, or rather two, of Burns' songs. 

An earlier tourist has described this little trip 
as follows : "When we had passed Craigie Burn 
wood, we had a full view of the romantic glen, 
bounded by lofty hills, frowning like the surly sen- 
tinels of the region posted behind them. A ride 
more romantic than this, on a fine day, can 
scarcely be imagined. After riding by the side of 
the Moffat, about seven miles, we crossed it, and 
ascending the hill on the other side, had a full 
view of the cascade we were in search of Here 
the water precipitating itself from rock to rock — 



THE DOUGLAS. 83 

dashing, foaming, and thundering from a great 
height between two steep hills — falls into a dark 
pool, from whence it runs with less impetuosity to 
augment the waters of the Moffat. The water, by 
its precipitous fall, is broken by the air, so as to 
appear as white as snow." The American tourist 
will feel some disappointment in the amount of 
falling water ; but the Grey Mare's Tail may be 
safely compared with Alpine cascades, though 
some of them are higher, and has features of its 
own, and in the wilderness of the gorge down 
which it plunges, which will interest him even 
after he has seen the falls of the Madesimo, in the 
Splugen Pass, and the Staubbach of the Lauter- 
brunnen. 

Going northward from Annandale, we enter 
upon the mountainous portion of Lanarkshire, in 
which the most interesting to a lover of Scottish 
history is the parish of Douglas. The name 
belonged originally, perhaps, to the Douglas 
water, and was thence given also to the parish 
and the family. It became heroic first in the per- 
son of the " Good Sir James," the attached friend 
and follower of King Robert Bruce, through all 
the war of liberation, and who commanded the 



84 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

centre of the Scottish army at Bannockburn. His 
castle and estates though ravaged in the course of 
the war, were made good to him in the end. And 
his heirs continued to hold and to add to them, 
and to the importance of their house, until they 
almost balanced the weight of the throne. The 
Sir William Douglas of 1357 was created Earl in 
that year, and eight more Earls followed him in 
succession until 1488. But the family divided. 
The third wife of this Earl William was Margaret, 
Countess of Angus, who resigned her rights for 
the benefit of her son. A younger son of the 
house of Douglas thus became Earl of Angus. 
Popularly, the two branches were distinguished 
from each other as the Black and the Red. 
When the Black, or southern Douglas, fell under 
forfeiture, and, as a peerage, became extinct in 
1488, the Red Douglas of Angus became sole rep- 
resentative of the family. In a short time the for- 
feited estates of the older branch came into their 
possession, and a new series of Earls of Douglas 
rose to a degree of importance on the borders not 
inferior to that of the former. It was one of this 
line who was the "Lord Angus" of " Marmion," 
and with whom that romantic hero had the spirited 



CASTLE DANGEROUS, 85 

conference at parting. The Earl of Douglas was 
in 1633 created Marquis by Charles I., and the 
third Marquis was in 1 700 made Duke. With the 
death of the Duke of Douglas, without heirs, in 
1761, the ducal rank came to an end. This old 
homestead, and part of the at one time vast 
estates fell to the Duke's sister's son, who took 
his mother's surname, and upon whom George III. 
conferred the favor of Baronial rank. A descend- 
ant of the friend of Bruce, the " Good Sir James," 
still occupied his estates as Lord Douglas, down 
until our own times. The old castle, however, is 
in ruins, destroyed accidentally by fire about the 
middle of last century. A new structure was 
forthwith erected upon an enlarged and magnifi- 
cent plan. Not much remains of the old. It was 
the "Castle Dangerous" of the last romance 
which issued from the failing hand of Sir Walter 
Scott. Peaceful subjects enough since the union 
of the Kingdoms, and establishment of one recog- 
nized law, the masters of this domain were, for 
three hundred years, the champions of one side 
and the terror of the other side of the Scottish 
and English boundary line. Percies in England, 
and Douglases in Scotland, were the Hectors and 
Achilleses of Border epic. 



CHAPTER VIL 

NITHSDALE — BURNS — ALLAN CUNNINGHAM — THE 
RANDOLPHS — GALLOWAY — PAUL JONES — 
SWEETHEART ABBEY — QUEEN MARY'S LAST 
JOURNEY IN SCOTLAND — LOCH KEN — MARY'S 
DREAM — THE WILD SCOT OF GALLOWAY — SIR 
ARCHIBALD THE GRIM — THE McCLELLANS — 
THE GORDONS OF KENMURE — SAMUEL RUTHER- 
FORD — DR. THOMAS BROWN. 

^ T was a matter of regret that I could give 
so little time to Nithsdale, abounding 
as it does with literary and historical 
associations. There are the scenes 
connected with the last days of Burns ; 
there, on the banks of the Nith at 
Ellisland, is the farm, where for the 
last time he attempted to make Pegasus work 
profitably in the plow ; there, at Dumfries, is the 
last house he occupied ; and there, in the ceme- 
tery of Dumfries, is his grave. There also is the 




NITBSDALE— BURNS. 



87 



first of those beautiful monuments erected to his 
memory, beholding which the onlooker cannot 
help thinking that the price of any one of them 
r(^nfcrred on the poet while alive, might have 
removed much of the suffering which clouded his 
later years. 

From Nithsdale also was obtained much of 
Cromek's collection of Nithsdale and Galloway 
song, in as far as it was not written by Allan 
Cunningham. Nor need that be excepted, for 
Allan was a Nithsdale man, and in his boyhood 
lived on a farm on the other side of the river from 
Burns, whom he would sometimes cross to see, and 
kindle his young enthusiam from the presence of 
the already celebrated poet. There also was the 
home of Mayne, author of the "Siller Gun," of 
Bennett, Aird and others, some of whose pro- 
ductions have gone to countries where their own 
names are unknown. 

When, in the reign of David I., Norman land- 
owners were settled in Eskdale and Annandale, 
the possession of Nithsdale was still in native 
hands. And while the Bruces in the succeeding 
two hundred years were gradually building up 
their power, which was ultimately to become regal, 



88 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

one of their most powerful supporters was taking 
shape and strength in the adjoining dale to the 
west. The oldest son of Dunegal, then lord of 
Nithsdale, was Randolph, who in his time added 
greatly to the possessions of his branch of the 
house. Surnames were only coming into use 
among our countrymen then, and the children of 
Randolph took his name as their surname. More 
than a hundred and fifty years later, a Thomas 
Randolph still further enlarged his inheritance and 
good fortune, by marriage with Isabel Bruce, sister 
of him who was afterwards King. Their son was 
the brave and trusty Sir Thomas Randolph, after the 
Douglas, the most esteemed friend of King Robert, 
who rewarded him with the Earldom of Murray, 
and extensive estates in Annandale. Here also 
were the estates of Cumyn, the rival of Bruce, and 
who fell by his hands at Dumfries. 

In passing through these dales, I have found 
myself among some of the most important family 
antiquities in Scotland, those of the Bruce, Douglas 
and Randolph, the principal heroes in the noble 
old heroic poem of John Barbour. These great 
names have no longer their ancient importance, 
except for history or romance, although Bruce 



GALLOWAY— PAUL JONES. 89 

and Douglas have still places in the Scottish peer- 
age. Others have come into possession of what 
was one time theirs. Especially has that most 
fortunate family, the Scotts of Buccleuch, acquired 
a large part of wdiat once belonged to all three, 
besides more than enough to support their ducal 
rank elsewhere. 

I have crossed the Nith to the west, and left 
behind the beautiful dales of Dumfriesshire, and 
am now in the country of those called in olden 
time the "Wild Scots of Galloway." With its 
bleak mountains, laying out to the north and west, 
it looks, for its own part, wild enough still ; and 
from appearances, the further west the wilder it 
becomes. Not a promising country, in the dis- 
tance, is this Galloway. By our modern method 
of locomotion we get over the ground rapidly, and 
one has hardly time to look at a place and recall 
an outline of its history ere it is passed. Already 
we have swept along or across several lovely 
little vales, and I can see away down to the south 
how beautifully they open out in that direction. 

I cannot see where these little rivers reach the 
Solway, but the meadows broaden in the direction 
of their current, and I know the Solway is there, 



go 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



to the left, not far off. Scenes of adventure are to 
be found there also, adventures that have their 
place in literature. It was down there that John 
Paul Jones was born and spent his boyhood ; and 
there also, when naval commander in the American 
Revolutionary war, he returned to plunder and 
destroy. In one of those estuaries King William 
III. found refuge from the storm which encountered 
him on his way to Ireland. Among those hills on 
the coast, a little way behind us now, are the ruins 
of New Abbey, better known abroad by the name 
of Sweetheart Abbey. There Devorgoil of Gallo- 
way, widow of John Baliol of Barnard Castle, and 
mother of King John Baliol, laid the body of her 
husband, and over or near it built the Abbey. His 
heart, embalmed and enclosed in an ivory box 
bound with silver and enamelled, she kept near 
her all the rest of her days. By her order, it was 
laid with her in the grave, near the high altar. 
That enduring affection, which the snows of 
eighty winters failed to chill, gave its best known 
name to the religious foundation of Devorgoil. 

A few miles further west is Port Mary, where 
the unfortunate Queen, whose indubitable crimes 
have not succeeded in alienating from her the affec- 



MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. gi 

tions of the people whom she governed so ill, 
took her final departure from Scotland. And not 
far off are the ruins of Dundrennan Abbey, where 
she spent her last night as Scotland's Queen. 
Next day saw her in England, the prisoner of 
her cousin, the last remnant of her royalty gone. 
It was down this romantic Glenkens that, after 
the battle of Langside, Mary directed her hasty 
flight towards the coast. Every spot where she 
stopped for an hour, and every place where people 
believe that her foot rested, are still pointed out 
with a degree of tenderness. This fact respecting 
the memory of one whom few Scotsmen now pre- 
tend to think guiltless, is a very touching feature 
of the national character. It arises from no lack 
of acumen, nor of moral sense, nor of general dis- 
position to speak out, all which qualities a traveller 
among Scotch people will soon detect. They 
admit that Mary Stewart was guilty — deeply 
guilty — that her policy, if successful, would have 
been utterly subversive of the best interests of her 
kingdom ; but they also think of her delicate sex, 
of her youth, and of the family influences under 
which she was brought up. They know that her 
very beauty and courtly accomplishments brought 



92 



A SUMMER RAMBLE JN SCOTLAND. 



about her men whose advice was her ruin. Scots- 
men of the present day think of their unfortunate 
young- Queen as the dehcate and suffering woman, 
and in the tenderness of commiseration cover her 
errors with a silent admission. 

And yonder is Loch Ken, with its picturesque 
residence of the Gordons of Kenmure, who were 
also lords of Lochinvar. And from here it was 
that 

" The young Lochinvar came out of the west, 
Through all the wide border his steed was the best," 

and so on, according to the spirited ballad of the 
"wily lady" Heron. The young hero may, it is 
true, have gone out from his castle in Lochinvar, 
further up the river ; but I have not time to adjust 
that in my mind, for here is the Dee with another 
set of associations, the first of which occurring to 
me is a song composed by a Scottish emigrant to 
America, of the name of Lowe : 

"The moon had climbed the highest hill 

Which rises o'er the source of Dee, 
And from the eastern summit shed 

Her silver light on tower and tree, 
When Mary laid her down to sleep, 

Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea, 
When soft and low a voice was heard 

Saying, Mnry, weep no more for me." 



GALLOWAY. gj 

It was on an island in the Dee that Sir 
Archibald Douglas the Grim, planted his strong- 
hold for the subjugation of Galloway. Acts of 
oppression and of lawless cruelty were perpetrated 
there, which have left more than one stain upon 
the escutcheon of that illustrious family. 

It was in Galloway where the Celtic race 
retained its integrity longest. Cimbric Celts, I 
believe they were. Gaels from the North of Ire- 
land and the Western Isles were the first to invade 
them. In the rude Latin of the middle ages 
they were called Galli, and the district Gallowagia, 
Gallowalia, or Gallovidia, out of which has pro- 
ceeded the modern name of Galloway. Saxons 
came at last, and from the seventh to the tenth 
century added no insignificant element to the 
population, which, however, was smaller than upon 
the eastern coast. 

Galloway was late in acknowledging the sov- 
ereignty of any prince beyond its own bounds. 
In the eleventh century Fergus, lord of Galloway, 
was a feudatory of King David I., but in the suc- 
ceeding reign of Malcolm IV., set up once more 
for himself. Malcolm made him feel the weight 
of the royal hand. Fergus died of humiliation, 



g^ A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

and left his estates and family subject to the mon- 
arch. But his sons in the next reign recovered 
their independence. From one of them was 
descended Marjory, Countess of Carrick, and 
mother of King Robert Bruce. And yet, in the 
war of the royal succession, the chiefs of Gallo- 
way took part with Baliol against Bruce. Gallo- 
way was the principal reliance of Edward Baliol, 
and was never brought fully into subjection to the 
Scottish crown until Sir Willliam Douglas overran 
it as the territory of Edward Baliol, and com- 
pelled McDowal, the hereditary enemy of the 
Bruces, to change his politics. From the expul- 
sion of Baliol in 1369, the greater part of the dis- 
trict came under dominion of the Douglases, who 
from their castle of Thrieve, on the Dee, exerted 
a power which ground into dust the resistance of 
the native chiefs. With the fall of the first 
Douglas line, in 1453, Galloway enjoyed relief, and 
gladly welcomed the immediate rule of King 
James II., and although often distracted by feuds 
of her chiefs, with one another, never again pre- 
tended to a separate government. 

The principal opponents of the Douglases in 
their days of power, in this quarter, were the 



THE McCLELLANS. gc 

McClellans of Bombie, in the parish of Kirkcud- 
bright, a few miles to the south. On one occasion, 
in consequence of marauding depredations upon 
the Doughis estates, Sir Patrick, the chief of the 
McClellans, was beseiged in his castle by Douglas, 
seized, carried off a prisoner to the castle of 
Thrieve, and hanged like a common felon — an 
act of violence which elicited the sympathies of 
popular song on behalf of its victim, and greatly 
damaged the cause of the perpetrator. And yet 
the difference between them was but a difference 
of strength. The King soon afterwards punished 
the heir of McClellan for plundering his neighbors, 
by the confiscation of all his lands. But larg'e 
bands of gipsies were then carrying their depreda- 
tions over the country. The King offered the for- 
feited inheritance of McClellan to any one who 
should disperse them, and bring their leader alive 
or dead to him. The young chief mustered his 
men, and valorously won the prize for himself, by 
carrying the head of the gipsy leader to the King 
on the point of his sword. His successor in the 
reign of Charles I. was elevated to the peerage as 
Lord Kirkcudbright — a barony which, after great 
power, deep depression, and restoration, dis- 



C)6 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

appeared from the list of the peerage about forty 
years ago.* 

The forfeited estates of Douglas, in Galloway, 
were never restored. Those of Kenmure and 
Lochinvar came, about the beginning of the six- 
teenth century, into the possession of the Gordons, 
a family of Norman descent, who held them long. 
Great as is the power of popular song, it has often 
very little relation to principle, prudence, or good 
sense. The only real political blunder which the 
Gordons of Kenmure have ever been guilty of, was 
that of joining the rebellion under the old Pre- 
tender ; and yet for that their name has been sung 
in applause by a public which did not agree with 
them at the time. The ballad referred to is well 
known in the south of Scotland, and begins : 

"Kenmure's on and awa', Willie, 
Kenmure's on and awa', 
And Kenmure's lord's the bravest lord 
That ever Galloway saw, Willie." 

By the Willie apostrophized here, I suppose we 
are to understand the ghost of King William III. 
It was an act which cost the Viscount his- life ; 

* The baronial title of Kirkcudbright has been represented as 
extinct. A note from Dr. McClellan, of Boston, leading to some little 
controversy between him and two or three other persons, convinces 
me that there is still a claimant for the title. 



SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. 



97 



and entailed upon his family forfeiture ot rank. 
Not until after more than a hundred years was 
that rank restored. Then another outburst of 
poetry, equally enthusiastic, greeted the fortunate 
heir : 

"We hail him Visconnt Kenmure, 
And Lord Lochinvar." 

But whatever may be said of the songs about 
them, that family have been, upon the whole, of a 
benign influence in Galloway, and have had among 
them some of the best men and women in Scot- 
land. It were enough to mention the friend and 
protector of the pious Welch and Rutherford, a 
nobleman of whom it has been said that he 
** singularly combined attachment to the house Of 
Stewart with unflinching fidelity in the profession 
of religion." His lady was the correspondent 
whose name is familiar to the readers of Ruther- 
ford's letters. 

And that reminds me that we are now in the 
neighborhood of Anwoth, good old Samuel Ruth- 
erford's parish. Who can think of those letters of 
his, the outpourings of a heart full of Chris- 
tian experience — of a tender, sanctified imagina- 
tion — but as pious monologues in a sort of mystic 



98 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



poetry, without poetic form ? The people here have 
not forgotten him, and have recently, I am told, 
erected a tasteful monument to his memory, 
although he was not buried here, but at St. 
Andrews, where in his later years he was Pro- 
fessor of Divinity. 

Next to Anwoth, we enter the parish of 
Kirkmabreck, the birth-place and burial-place of 
the more widely celebrated Dr. Brown, Professor 
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edin- 
burgh. Dr. Brown's reputation was made in the 
field of philosophy, and rests upon his achieve- 
ments there, but the most of his literary labor 
was expended in poetry — not the first example of 
a great mind failing in the favorite object of its 
ambition, and succeeding in a pursuit where it had 
little or none. Petrarch sought fame by his Latin 
Epic, and amused himself with Italian sonnets. 
The latter alone have preserved his name. The 
consecration of Milton's life was to his country's 
common-wealth, in his patriotic papers and con- 
troversies ; the by-play of his youth, and the kill- 
time of his old age alone have placed the laurel 
upon his brow. Dr. Brown's ambition was for 
poetry, and faithfully he labored in it ; while philo- 
sophy was the bread-study by which he lived. 



DR. THOMAS BROWN. gg 

But his poems are forgotten ; and his lectures, 
written in haste to meet the daily duty, have 
carried his name wherever Scottish philosophy is 
known. 

But we have rounded the hills of Kircudbright- 
shire ; and a new and extensive prospect opens 
full before us. On the north the mountains, black 
and lofty, fill the horizon. From the south the 
sea comes up into the land ; and its levela Imost 
is continued by a plain, for many miles more along 
the western foot of the mountains. Beyond that, 
far towards the now setting sun, extends the low, 
but hilly expanse of Wigtonshire. Through the 
midst of the plain, into which we are about to 
descend, the hitherto rapid Cree languishes out 
its last weary miles, before losing itself in the Bay 
of Wigton. On the further side of the bay spread 
the rich plains called the Mahars ; and near us on 
this side are the estate, with its long ago ruinous 
castle, said to be the Ellangowan of Guy Manner- 
ing, and a rugged coast southward to the Solway, 
connected in popular belief with the adventures of 
Dirk Hatteraick and Meg Merrilees — associations 
which may be regarded with the more interest 
that the author of Waverly himself good-naturedly 
connived at them. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SOUTHERN EXTREMITY OF SCOTLAND — THE 
PACKMAN POET — CASTLE-KENNEDY — VISCOUNT 
STAIR— THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR — LOCH- 
RYAN — CAPTAIN ROSS — THE ROVER OF LOCH- 
RYAN — FIRST CHURCH IN GALLOWAY — NINIAN 
— MISSION TO IRELAND — PORT-PATRICK. 

.IGTONSHIRE, that part of Galloway 
west of the Cree, is in the main a hilly 
country, without being mountainous. 
Its surface presents a tumult of little 
summits, few of them more than five 
hundred feet high, except on its 
northern boundary, where it touches upon the 
highlands of the south. Towards the sea, it spreads 
into rich alluvial plains, but in that is far from regu- 
lar. Much of its extensive sea-coast is rock-bound 
and dangerous. Upon the whole, the elevation of 
Wigtonshire above sea-level is less than that of 




WIGTONSHIRE. 



lOI 



any other district of equal size in Scotland. Much 
of it is under high culture, and beautiful, and with 
little exception, it might all be cultivated ; but the 
greater part is still unwounded by the plow. 

In popular language, the county is divided 
into three portions — the Moors, the Mahars and 
the Rhins. The Rhins, or promontories, constitute 
that peninsular part lying west of Lochryan and 
the bay of Luce, together with the isthmus between 
them. The Mahars, or flat country, embrace most 
of the south and all the eastern side of the cape 
between the bays of Luce and of Wigton. These 
two portions are rich and well cultivated. All the 
rest of the county — much the larger part — belongs 
to the Moors, here and there fair and productive, 
but, upon the whole, given up to pasturage — a 
bleak, dismal heathery moorland, without the 
compensating picturesque wildness of the sister 
county of Kirkcudbright. The road from Newton- 
Stewart to Glenluce passes over it where its only 
recommendation to the traveller, who has no asso- 
ciations of home or kindred there, is that it is 
elevated, commanding a view unobstructed on 
every side, and in the distance to the east, rests 
on the mountains of Minnigaff, of whose majestic 



102 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

and varied outlines the eye does not soon tire. 
By rail, the distance is but brief from sea to sea, 
from the last glance at the estuary of the Cree, 
until you again look down upon the toiling waters 
in the bay of Luce. 

It was over this county, in its length and 
breadth, but especially its moorland, that William 
Nicholson, the packman poet, some sixty years 
ago, pursued his peregrinations, selling his wares, 
and entertaining the country people with his songs. 
Among the earliest of my reading was a copy of 
his poems — a copy well, but carefully, worn before 
it came into my hands — a volume written out of 
doors, and best enjoyed on a sunny day, on the 
hillside ; of no contemptible literary merit, but 
smelling more of the pastures than of the lamp. 
The country people used to tell of its author 
having been seen seated in some cosy nook, with 
his pack before him as a table, pursuing his solitary 
work of composition, in the midst of those pastoral 
scenes which he described. I have not seen the 
book for — I would not like to say how many years 
— and my judgment of it might be less favorable 
now ; but the impressions it has left are blended 
with remembrances of happy days of early boy- 



THE PACKMAN POET. jq-* 

hood, with out-door life, with summer sunshine, 
the hills, the heathery bank and the hum of the 
wild bee. I had not then read any of our great 
poets. Nicholson's was the first volume of poetry, 
except the Psalms, that came into my hands. To 
my thoughts, in those days, its author was not of 
the category of mortal beings. In his mysterious 
power of fascinating the imagination and the ear, 
he was not a man, but an inspired genius of song. 
The sweetness of his versification so powerfully 
affected me, that even at this distance of time its 
fragrance is not entirely evaporated. The following 
stanzas, for example, chiefly for that reason, assert 
their place before fancy still. 
This little fragment — 

"Where winding Tarf, by broomy knowes, 
Wi' siller waves, to saut sea rows ; 
And mony a greenwood cluster grows, 
And harebells blooming bonnie " — 

seemed to me a strain of faultless music. A simi- 
larly disconnected member from some other song 
still recommends itself as singularly melodious, like 
a broken fragment from a lost Greek lyric : 

"The lightsome lammie little kens 
What troubles it await — 
Whan ance the flush o' spring is o'er, 
The fause bird lea'es its mate. 



I04 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

The flowers will fade, the woods decay, 

And lose their bonny green ; 
The sun wi' clouds may be o'ercast, 

Before that it be e'en. 

Ilk thing is in its season sweet ; 

So love is, in its noon : 
But cankering time may soil the flower, 

And spoil its bonny bloom. 
O come then, while the summer shines, 

And love is young and gay. 
Ere age his withering, wintry blast 

Blaws o'er me and my May." 

The longest poem in the volume, ,'* The Country- 
Lassie," was a sweet simple tale of life, such as the 
author knew it among these moors of Galloway. 
Between Newton-Stewart and Kirkowan, we pass 
the river Blednoch, from which he took the name of 
his ablest production, *'The Brownie of Blednoch." 
In that he entered the sphere of the supernatural, 
and evinced a command of its imagery hardly 
inferior to that of the Ettrick Shepherd. 

Poor Willie Nicholson ! It was inexpressibly 
painful, at a later time, to learn that he was even 
then forming those degrading habits which carried 
him down to a lower level than common men, and 
finally to a miserable grave. He died in 1849. 

From Glenluce, westward to the coast hills of 
the Rhins, the country is a rich plain, and culti- 



CASTLE-KENNEDY. IO5 

vated, even up the sides of the coast hills, to the 
utmost of its capacity. Well tended farms, heavy 
crops, green pastures, clean-kept woodland, and 
comfortable houses pass in review before us, as we 
sweep along through this beautiful scene of agri- 
cultural prosperity. Stranraer, the largest town 
of the county, and possessed of some historic 
interest, is near at hand. But I shall not go there 
to-day. Here is the station for Castle-Kennedy ; 
and although I have no designs upon the hospi- 
tality of his lordship of Stair, I shall step out here. 
It is a neat and cosy station, like the ordinary 
approaches to a residence of the wealthy. It 
might be a kind of outer porter's lodge. But no 
entertainment for travelers here. I should feel 
desolate to stand thus alone, but that in the 
grove, two or three hundred yards off, there is an 
attraction which has brought me many hundred 
miles. In the manse over there, of which I can 
only see the roof above the shrubbery, lives the 
best beloved friend of my boyhood. What an 
army of days has marched by since we last met ! 
And he } Changed undoubtedly. So am I. 
Shall we have the delightful accord of feeling, of 
taste, and of purpose, which we once had '^. Will 



I06 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

he meet me as we used to meet ? In my mind he 
is a lad still. That image long cherished must 
soon be given up. When I see him as he is, I 
shall never again remember him so distinctly as 
he was. That is much to lose. Will what I gain 
be ever as dear .? And yet all that is nothing to 
the anticipated joy of meeting. But I must wait 
until this intoxication of the heart subsides. 

CASTLE-KENNEDY. 

In the neighborhood of the quiet little manse 
stands the palatial residence of Lord Stair. That 
is the way I looked at it. What is nearest to 
our affections is to each of us the centre of the 
universe. The palace was an object of admira- 
tion ; the manse, one of love ; and my walks 
through the extensive and beautiful grounds were 
due to the privilege accorded to my friend, and 
derived their greatest charm from his presence. 

Lord Stair is the heir of a peerage highly hon- 
ored for intellectual power and moral principle. 
His ancestor, the first Viscount Stair, was one of 
the most eminent jurists Scotland ever produced, 
and one of her wisest men ; the second Viscount, 
and first Earl, was an elegant parliamentary 



VIS CO UNT S TAIR. 1 07 

orator, a leading statesman and promoter of the 
Union ; and his successor was the illustrious Mar- 
shal Stair, the hero of Dettingen, whose reputa- 
tion belongs to the European history of his time. 

Originally an Ayrshire family, the Dalrymples 
came into possession of a large part of their 
estates by connection with the Kennedies in both 
Ayrshire and Galloway. And hence the name 
of this elegant residence, which formerly belonged 
to the Kennedies, Earls of Cassillis. 

From the dawn of the Reformation, the Dal- 
rymples of Stair have been conspicuous as friends 
and promoters of civil and religious liberty. 
They were among the first to adopt the reformed 
faith. The first Viscount of the name. President 
of the College of Justice, and author of the work 
called " Institutions of the Law of Scotland," was, 
through a long period of royal aggressions upon 
the Constitution of his country, its sober, prudent, 
inflexible defender. A man, whose public career 
extended fro«i the reign of Charles I. to that of 
William III., must have found it no easy matter 
to steer clear of offence, on one side or the other. 
Lord Stair suffered from both. And it must be 
said for him, that he lost his high office by means 



I08 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

as honorable to his patriotism and Christian 
character, as his attainment of it had been to his 
talents and learning. Removed arbitrarily for 
religious reasons, by Charles II., he retired to his 
estates in Galloway ; but soon had to provide for 
his personal safety by escaping from the domin- 
ions of his King. He found refuge in Holland. 
His long and illustrious legal career, the value of 
his opinions, and his religious consistency, pro- 
cured him the friendship and confidence of the 
Prince of Orange. Nor was he without an im- 
portant share in the *' representations and nego- 
tiations" which resulted in the expedition of that 
Prince to England. He also accompanied it. 
When William III. was " seated on the throne, he 
manifested in every way the utmost respect for 
his venerable attendant, relied upon him chiefly 
for advice and direction," restored him to his for- 
mer '* station of Lord President of the Court of 
Session," and conferred upon him the rank of 
Viscount Stair. 

It was not to be expected that a man so con- 
spicuous, in a time of such violent party passions, 
should escape defamation. One of the most 
baseless and cruel things of that kind was the 



THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 109 

story upon which Scott founded his "Bride of 
Lammermoor." 

Janet Dalrymple, eldest daughter of Viscount 
Stair, was married to David Dunbar, younger of 
Baldoon, on the 12th of August, 1669, and died at 
the end of four weeks and a few days. The death 
of a young bride, in high place in society, elicited 
much popular s\'mpathy and remark ; and ene- 
mies of the family began to hint at guilty causes. 
The Rev. Andrew Symson, minister of the parish 
church which Dunbar attended, wrote a prosaic 
n^etrical elegy on the death of the young lady, 
in which he says that two weeks after the mar- 
riage she was brought home to Baldoon with 
much rejoicing. He makes no allusion to any- 
thing extraordinary, or mysterious, or tragic 
about her death, but simply bewails it as untimely. 
" She waned in her prime." Of her unhappiness in 
her marriage he has no suspicion. For he speaks 
of her brief married life as "that little time that 
she'd enjoy." The tragic story was obviously con- 
cocted upon the foundation of ignorant suspicion, 
to slander the father and mother of the bride. It 
took various shapes flatly contradictory of each 
other. According to one set of it, the young lady 



no A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

was constrained by her mother, represented as a 
Lady Macbeth in the second degree, and the weak- 
ness of her father, who did not dare oppose his 
wife, to reject a suitor whom she loved, and marry 
one whom she did not love. On the wedding 
night she became insane, and attempted to mur- 
der her bridegroom. In another set of the story, 
Lady Stair was in league with the Devil, and 
through his agency built up the prosperity of her 
family. But Satan, for some unrecorded reason, 
was indignant at the alliance with Baldoon, and 
either himself, or by some of his imps, entered the 
bridal chamber, dragged the bride out of her bed, 
and hauled her about the room, for giving her con- 
sent to it. By a third version, the young lady 
herself insisted upon marrying Dunbar, contrary 
to her mother's wishes, who gave her consent only 
with a prediction of evil, in the words, '* You may 
marry him ; but soon shall you repent it." And 
accordingly it was the bridegroom who attempted 
the murder of his bride. There are still other 
variations on the theme, equally unworthy of 
credit, but all slanderous of the family of Stair. 
Several of them are mentioned by Sir Walter 
Scott, in his introduction, with a bias to the 



THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. j j j 

romantic side, easily excused in a poet. The 
best and most truth-like version of the story is 
his own. For that is relieved from absurdity, is 
touching and tender, and makes no pretension to 
history. But for it, the whole incoherent fabrica- 
tion had long ago wilted away, and given place to 
the plain account of a sad, but not very uncom- 
mon event in human life. At the same time, 
while fact vindicates the reputation of the chief 
personages from unjust aspersions, we may be well 
pleased if even a malicious falsehood gave occasion 
and furnished suggestions for a powerful work of 
literary art, a prose tragedy, whose characters have 
the reality only of truth-like fiction. 

Some of the discrepancies with history which 
appear in the romances of Scott, are not due to 
the demands of art, but of haste on the part of 
the author. A tale took his fancy, and expanded 
itself before him, and thereupon he wrote. His 
notes and introductions, prepared after fuller 
information, give the facts more truly. In some 
instances those facts would have served the pur- 
pose of romance as well, if not better, had the 
author known them in time, than the turn which 
his imagination took. Such is not true of the 



112 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

''Bride of Lammermoor." All that is of a nature 
to make it an interesting tale is fictitious ; and 
better Sir Walter's fiction than that of prosaic and 
malignant slanderers. 

The grounds and plantations of Castle-Ken- 
nedy were laid out by Marshal Stair, in the old 
French manner of landscape gardening, but with 
some features peculiar to themselves, and con- 
sistent with the military taste of the designer. 
Upon that original plan, but in a freer style, addi- 
tions have been made, at different dates, down to 
the present. They enclose and lie between two 
lakes, united by a narrow channel ; one being 
about a mile and the other a mile and a half in 
length, and each about half a mile wide. Without 
the grandeur or sublimity, which some in the 
Highlands command, the extensive gardens of 
Castle-Kennedy present an uncommon diversity 
of combinations of land and water, of wood and 
lawn, of natural and artificial level and elevation ; 
and few exhibit a greater variety of rare and 
choice plants, arranged to produce the finest 
effects in the landscape. 

The old castle was burnt by accident in 171 5, 
and was not rebuilt. It remains a large ruinous 



LOCHR YAN~STRANRAER. 1 1 3 

mass of walls in the heart of the grounds. The 
new castle is at a considerable distance further 
from the public road. It seems to be character- 
istic of British nobility and gentry to seek, for 
favorite residence, retired places in the country. 
Their finest homesteads are to be found standing 
solitary among woods, mountains, lakes, miles 
away from the nearest town, and shunning, as far 
as practicable, the neighborhood of the highway. 

To the west of the castle extends Lochryan, 
an inlet of the Atlantic, running from north to 
south into the country about twelve miles, with 
a breadth of from two to six miles. At its south- 
ern extrem.ity there is a well protected harbor, 
and close beside it the town of Stranraer. It 
appeared to me that the amount of business was 
much less than the local advantages ought to 
create. A moderate amount of enterprise and of 
capital ought to make Stranraer one of the most 
thriving depots in Scotland. I could see little 
going on in the harbor except the daily steamboat 
to and from Ireland. What would the Glasgow 
men have made out of such a situation by the sea, 
with a Lochryan at their hand } Stranraer is slow 
in waking up. jj 



114 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

It was at this inland extremity of Lochryan 
that Captain Ross, the Arctic expforer, finally cast 
anchor. His house is just outside of the town of 
Stranraer, on the edge of the sea, where its waters 
could be admitted to the grounds. He had it 
built, as near as possible, on the model of a ship. 
The dining room is without windows on the side, 
the light being admitted from above, and recesses 
disposed on the side, like state-rooms. Whether 
the old captain had his bunk, or hung his ham- 
mock there, I do not remember that it was told 
me. By the present occupant the recess is cur- 
tained off to preserve the pictures of Arctic scenes, 
which cover the walls. On the same plan, more 
or less closely, are the other apartments ; and on 
the roof is a quarter deck, from which the retired 
navigator commanded a view up Lochryan 
towards the northern sea. This singular and 
spacious structure he called " Northwest Castle." 
The present owner, a gentleman who at one time 
resided in America, fully respects the whims as 
well as the enterprise of the old Sea Captain, his 
predecessor, and retains all things just as they 
came into his possession. 

However little the commercial enterprise of 



THE RO VER OF LOCHR VAN. j j 5 

the place, everything here sounds of the sea. 
Traditions of naval adventure, and the pride and 
joy of sailor-craft, fill the minds of youth with 
whom I enter into conversation — pure love of the 
sea, undebased by ulterior thoughts of gain. 
Hugh Ainslie's song, *' The Rover of Lochryan," 
has caught the true spirit of these shores : 

"The Rover o' Lochryan, he's gane, 

Wi' his merry men sae brave ; 
Their hearts are o' the steel, and a better keel 

Ne'er bowl'd o'er the back o' a wave. 
It's no when the loch lies dead in his trough, 

When naething disturbs it ava 
But the rack and the ride o' the restless tide, 

Or the splash o' the grey sea-maw; 
It's no when the yawl and the light skiffs crawl 

Owre the bi^east o' the siller sea. 
That I look to the west for the bark I lo'e best, 

And the rover that's dear to me ; 
But when the clud lays its cheek to the flud. 

An' the sea lays its shouther to the shore ; 
When the win' sings high, and the sea-whaups cry, 

As they rise frae the whitening roar ; — 
It's then that I look to the thickening rook, 

An' watch by the midnight tide ; 
I ken that the wind brings my rover hame, 

And the sea that he glories to ride. 
O merry he sits 'mang his jovial crew, 
• Wi' the helm heft in his hand. 
An' he sings aloud to his boys in blue, 

As his e'es upon Galloway's land. 



Il5 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

'Unstent an' slack each reef an' tack, 

Gae her sail, boys, while it may sit ; 
She has roar'd through a heavier sea afore, 

And she'll roar through a heavier yet. 
When landsmen sleep, or wake and creep 

In the tempest's angry moan. 
We dash through the drift, an' sing to the lift 

O' the wave that heaves us on.' " 

And here it occurs to me also that the older 
ballads of this coast are true sailor yarns, and 
thereby as different from the spirit of the Border 
literature of that kind, as if they did not belong 
to the same nation. Some of them are rough and 
grotesque, as that which celebrates the conversion 
of the Mermaid of Lochryan ; but one, at least, 
*' Fair Annie of Lochryan," is, both in the weird- 
like character of its narrative, and the tenderness 
and delicacy of its sentiment, of more than com- 
mon merit. 

In this out-of-the-way quarter — until after the 
Reformation, counted the wildest part of the Low- 
lands — the traveler finds himself at one of the 
original homesteads of the Scottish Church, and 
that positively which has the cleanest history. 
Upon a little island on the coast of Whithorn, in 
the Mahars of Wigtonshire, did Ninian plant his 
first preaching station, and theological school. A 



NINIAN. 1 1 J 

native of Whithorn, born in 360, he received his 
education in France, and accepted his Christian 
doctrine from Martin of Tours — at least so says his 
mediaeval biographer. His was not, therefore, 
a gospel entirely free from additions, but pure as 
compared with what Romanists subsequently 
imputed to him. Its progress within his own life- 
time was rapid ; but after his death in 432, greatly 
retarded, by the wars in which the people of Gal- 
loway were engaged, to defend themselves against 
aggressions from north and east and west, con- 
tinued for centuries. 

Meanwhile, that gospel message was carried 
elsewhere. Ninian was not thirty years older than 
Patrick ; and Patrick's preaching in Ulster had 
commenced ere that of Ninian in Galloway had 
closed. Less than seventy years after the death 
of Patrick, his prosperous church of Ulster fur- 
nished missionaries to the heathen Hebrides, and 
Columba and his companions set up their church 
and school in lona. Again, seventy years later, 
lona sent her missionaries to the heathen Saxons 
of Northumbria, and founded the seminary on 
Lindisfarne. The christianization of Ireland, of 
the Scottish Highlands, and of the north and east 



Il8 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

of England, all proceeded from the missionary 
enterprise of the southwestern Lowlands. 

It would, however, be too much to assert that 
all proceeded from the work of Ninian alone. For 
it is beyond doubt that in the west country, on 
the Clyde, Christianity had been preached at an 
earlier date, and Patrick may have made his first 
acquaintance with it there. But the Christianity 
preached by both was equally primitive as com- 
pared with the later ecclesiasticism which can- 
nonized them. 

There is no certainty that Port-Patrick has 
anything to do with St. Patrick, but the name is 
witness to a common belief that it is someway 
connected with his history ; and that from the 
rugged Httle cove of that name, the apostle of 
Ireland took his departure from Galloway. In 
company with my friend of Northwest Castle, and 
his accomplished lady, I spent a happy morning 
iu crossing the Rhins, and following to the sea 
the footsteps of the saint. 

Lying over against the coast of Ireland, at the 
narrowest part of the channel, Port-Patrick was 
at one time assumed by the national govern- 
ment as the principal port of communication with 



FOR T-PA TRICK. I j g 

the sister island. A large amount of money was 
laid out to make it safe and commodious. But, 
after all, the weight of the sea rolling in upon an 
area so small, as naturally protected, proved too 
strong for artificial barriers. The expense of 
keeping the works in repair turned out to be more 
than the value of the port would justify. They 
are accordingly suffering from neglect. Massive 
piers, constructed of enormous rocks solidly built 
together, and bound to their places with bands of 
iron, are already undermined, loosened, torn 
asunder, and removed by the force of wind and 
wave. It is to be feared that, in a few years 
hence, these great works of recent utilitarian 
enterprise will be exhibited, like the old castle of 
Dunsky, in the neighborhood, as merely interest- 
ing ruins. 

Business has betaken itself partly to the safer 
harbor of Stranraer, and to others further north 
and south, especially to Liverpool and Glasgow. 
And Port-Patrick, though not entirely given up, 
has to be content with a business which is abund- 
antly served by one or two trains a day. 



CHAPTER IX. 

NEWTON-STEWART — GLEN CREE — A PICTURESQUE 
COUNTRY— ALEXANDER MURRAY — THE COV- 
ENANTERS IN GALLOWAY— OLD MORTALITY — 
SIR WALTER SCOTT — JOSEPH TRAIN. 

T was on a bright sunny morning in 
August that I cHmbed to the summit 
of a mountain on the west of Newton- 
Stewart, in Galloway. A panorama 
spread around me of almost unparal- 
leled variety. I had looked on much 
higher mountains and wilder glens, and 
with some of the details before me I was already 
acquainted ; but the whole, as seen from that 
point, presented such a combination of elements 
serving to make up the picturesque as is rarely to 
be found. On the west, a rolling, well-cultivated 
land, for the breadth of about two miles ; and 




NEWTON- STEWART. 12 1 

beyond that, heathery hills and dark brown moor- 
land, spread out in a low range far to the north, 
to the distance of some twenty miles, terminating 
in a barricade of similarly dark, heathery moun- 
tains, lying across the horizon from east to west, 
and cutting off the view in that direction. The 
eastern side was entirely occupied with a range of 
lofty mountains. In the middle, extending directly 
north and south for fifteen or sixteen miles, lies an 
irregularly shaped valley, through the length of 
which flows the rapid water of Cree. On its 
extreme south, the valley becomes a broad alluvial 
plain, richly productive, and now yellow with the 
ripening harvest. And there the sea, like a great 
wedge of polished silver, comes up into the land as 
part of a shining sheet away in the distance, as far 
as the eye can reach. Dark mountains on the east, 
green hills on the west, bound sea and plain on 
either side. In that quarter the cultivated land 
stretches furthest to the west. Elements of great 
diversity belong to the valley, and to its eastern 
boundary of mountains. Where the plain, coming 
up from the sea, terminates in a point, and the val- 
ley, for some distance, narrows to a glen, the town 
of Newton-Stewart shelters itself on both banks of 



122 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

the river, and close at the foot of the hills on either 
side. Not much room is left between the hills and 
the river ; and so the town climbs up the western 
side, laying hands upon the most charming sites for 
residences and gardens. About a mile further up, 
the glen widens towards the east, forming a narrow 
plain, upon which stand the remains of the now 
almost deserted village of Minnigaff. At this 
point the glen is joined by the side glen of Penkill. 
And at the meeting of the waters, and between 
them, on high ground, beside an ancient moat, and 
surrounded by ancient trees, is the old churchyard 
of Minnigaff, the most romantic spot of the kind in 
all the south of Scotland. 

At its junction with Penkill, the Cree issues 
from a dark, rocky gorge, through which it has 
hewn itself a channel for nearly a mile, and in 
which it is altogether invisible from the level of the 
country. Above that vanquished barrier it reap- 
pears, winding freely in the midst of a well culti- 
vated open valley, limited on the north by the 
spacious grounds of Penninghame House, and the 
thick forest which there begins to cloth the moun- 
tain side. At that point a low bank of rocks 
restrains the rapidity of the stream, and the whole 



GLEN CREE. 1 23 

character of the scenery northward is changed. I 
rode through it not long ago, and reviewed impres- 
sions which memory had long retained. A deep 
glen opens widely to the north, with rich green 
meadow, and the river lying asleep in its bosom ; 
the pastures sloping up the hills to the west, inter- 
spersed with groups of trees ; the abrupt ascent of 
the mountain's base, on the eastern side, covered 
with forest, through which, here and there, gleams 
the foam of cataracts ; the various curves of ascent, 
far above the region of trees, above that of the 
heather and above that of grey pasture, to the 
rocky summits which faintly draw their outlines on 
the sky. From Penninghame House, northward, 
the length is only three or four miles to where the 
river divides into its constituent streams, and the 
belt of level country scatters away into moorland. 

It is not a scene of desolation. For the glen is 
fertile and well cultivated ; and up the mountains,, 
above the region of forest, there are farms, extend- 
ing as far as culture can go ; but the boundaries 
on all sides, save the pass by Penninghame House, 
are wilderness, and the whole is perfectly secluded 
from all the rest of the world. Nothing but solitary 
farm-houses are to be seen within the glen or from it. 



124 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Viewed as a whole, it is singularly complete, a 
scene in which repose of tranquil beauty and the 
most majestic grandeur are harmoniously combined. 

And this is the place where Margaret Wilson, 
the virgin martyr of Wigton, spent her life. Her 
father's farm, Glenvernoch, is one of those which 
slope from the meadows up to the heather, on the 
western side. 

The mountain range which bounds on the 
east the whole diversified valley of the Cree, is 
itself exceedingly diversified. Rising abruptly 
from the sea, on the south, in those headlands 
which divide the Solway from the Irish Sea, they 
soon attain an elevation of 2,000 feet. - Cairnsmuir, 
which lies over against Newton-Stewart, rises to 
that height immediately from the plain. Then 
next to the northward comes the deep glen of 
Palnure, cleaving the ridge to its base, and making 
the northern side of the black heathery Cairnsmuii 
almost a precipice. The ridge gradually recovers 
its elevation by a succession of summits rising 
towards the north, but not before it has again been 
cleft more than half through by the glen of Penkill. 
Embowered in woods on the northern slope of that 
charming little vale are the ruins of Garlics Castle, 



ALEXANDER MURRA V. 1 2 5 

an ancient baronial residence, which still gives the 
title of Lord Garlics to the oldest son of the Earl 
of Galloway ; and amid its woods, and lawns, and 
gardens in the bottom of the glen, and by the 
burnside, is to be seen Comlodan Cottage, where 
General Stewart, one of Wellington's heroes of the 
Peninsula, spent the last years of his life. And 
down at the foot of the glen, where the Penkill 
pours its waters into the Cree, at the little village 
school of Minnigafif, did Alexander Murray begin 
his brief, extraordinary career of philological attain- 
ments — one of the great precursors of recent philo- 
logical science. His birthplace was the cot of a 
shepherd on the bleakest side of Cairnsmuir. 

North of Penkill, the light gray colored moun- 
tains rise successively, in the most graceful and 
majestic of outlines, to the height of 3,000 feet. 
About fourteen miles from Newton-Stewart, the 
ridge near its highest elevation is cut through 
abruptly by the deep winding Glentrool — too far 
away to be distinctly seen from the point of view 
which I have chosen, but the deep notch in the 
mountains is a very conspicuous, feature. 

Only because this part of Scotland is out of the 
common route of travel, can it be accounted for 



126 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

that scenery of such variety of picturesque beauty 
has escaped the attention of tourists, and has been 
barely touched with a ray of that poetic light which 
robes all the rest of the country. There is, how- 
ever, a real poetry about it, which its people cherish 
fondly. These mountains, in days when Scotland's 
best and noblest were persecuted for their faith, 
furnished refuge, in their dells and caverns, for many 
who would otherwise have perished by the hand of 
violence. The romance of this region — its heroic 
traditon, is that of Covenanter suffering. Down 
there, near the head of the bay, about seven miles 
from where I stand, were Margaret McLauchlin 
and Margaret Wilson, for their religion's sake, put 
to death by drowning. Four men, for the same 
cause, shot without sentence of law, lie buried in 
that neighborhood. And at different places among 
the hills are the graves and tombstones of others, 
whose bodies were laid in the earth where they fell. 
When quite a little boy, spending a holiday at 
a friend's house among yon mountains far to the 
north, I one day rambled out alone, and tempted 
by the indescribable attraction of the scenery, went 
several miles away through a country where cattle 
and sheep of the wild mountain breed were the 



OLD MORTALITY. 



127 



only creatures to be seen. In crossing a dreary 
uninhabited valley, among trees not far from the 
banks of a stream, I found a little green lawn with 
cattle grazing, and in the midst of it, a headstone, 
a coarse brown sandstone slab. I went up to it, 
and read on one side the names of six men who 
had been shot down near that spot for having been 
found in an adjoining cottage at a prayer meeting. 
On the other side were faithfully inscribed the 
names of the officers in a troop of dragoons who 
slew them. I looked around for the cottage. It 
was gone. No habitation of man was near. That 
little monument stood there alone, holding up its 
record in the wilderness. 

Upon returning to the house of my friend, a 
plain sheep farmer, I recounted my discovery, and 
expressed my surprise that, old as the monument 
was, the lettering was so clean. "Ah," said he, 
** there is an auld man that gangs aboot, and 
keeps a' thae kin' o' stanes clean.' *'Who is he.!'" 
I inquired. He shook his head with an air of 
mystery. " I dinna ken. Naebody kens wha he is, 
or whaur he comes frae ; but they ca' him Auld 
Mortality." After I had read Sir Walter Scott's 
book of that name, I regretted, as I still regret, 



128 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

that he had not made his acquaintance with Old 
Mortality in the same place. Sir Walter has 
entirely failed to apprehend the true style of 
romance pertaining to that character and its con- 
ditions. He never was in this part of the country, 
and learned the facts only at second-hand through 
an antiquarian collector, and after their native 
aroma had evaporated. The romance in which he 
clothed the character is comparatively common- 
place, utterly unlike the individualizing tinge which 
rests on his delineations of what he had seen. 
Romance of Covenanter suffering was of a very 
different kindred from that of Border or Highland 
freebooters, and needed to be learned at its own 
sources. 

A man's weakness and his strength generally 
lie in close neighborhood. One great charm of Sir 
Walter Scott's poems and romances is their chiv- 
alric character. His own weakness was admiration 
for the high in rank, and the chivalry conceived of 
as belonging to them. But the Covenanters were 
not chivalrous. They were merely earnest men, 
who faithfully endeavored to practice what they 
believed, and would not be compelled to practice 
something else. There was no glamour about 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. I2o 

them. In short, they were just the patriots who, 
in the time of Charles II. and James II., stood 
firmly by the Constitution, civil and ecclesiastical, 
of their country, when *' a ribald king and court," 
to use Sir Walter's own words, attempted to 
extinguish both. A healthy openness to the 
admission of all realities was one of the noblest 
features of Scott's mind ; but in this direction his 
predilections more than once misled him. Oppo- 
nents of the Covenanters had claimed the sole 
honors of chivalry, and called themselves Cava- 
liers. Many of the nobility, and men ambitious 
to be among the nobility, who had once signed the 
Covenant, deserted it at the Restoration, and 
passed over to the side of the "ribald king and 
court," and served their purpose towards breaking 
down the freedom of their native land. Cove- 
nanters were not all poor men, nor were they with- 
out nobility among them, as witness the houses 
of Arygll and of Kenmure ; but the greatest 
number, for theirs was a national cause, were of 
the common people — a class of persons whom 
that "ribald king and court" had resolved should 
have no rights. The faithful perseverance in 
testimony for the rights of Christian men — testi- 

I 



I30 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

mony without rebellion, in the midst of incredible 
suffering for twenty-seven years — is one of the 
sublimest spectacles in the history of human 
freedom. Nor did they relax in that testimony 
until they saw the persecuting dynasty swept 
from the throne, and the freedom of their Church 
and nation established. Yet, in that heroic and 
successful struggle, which secured to Scotland the 
rights she now enjoys, Scott could see nothing but 
a ridiculous plebeian fanaticism. The king and the 
aristocracy, in the main, were on the other side, 
and he chose his heroes from them, chose some of 
his heroes from the basest traitors to his country's 
cause. It is painful to an admirer of Scott to 
think of that morning in his library, when, before 
a portrait of Claverhouse, he and Joseph Train 
deliberately planned the attempt to erect that 
infamous personage into a hero, and to turn the 
pious people, whom he had harassed and murdered, 
into ridicule, in order to effect that end, and there- 
by make a startling romance. It was in the region 
of Galloway that Train, then an exciseman in 
Newton-Stewart, collected most of the tradition- 
ary material for that work. 

Many stories and incidents, which Scott has 



JOSEPH TRAIN. I^i 

woven into some of his other novels, were also 
gathered for him here by the same diligent hand. 
The schoolmaster of a village among those green 
hills to the south sent to Mr. Train some amusing 
traditions, and signed his communication Cleish- 
botham. "This facetious gentleman was the pro- 
totype of the celebrated Jedediah Cleishbotham of 
Gandercleuch, and, like him, drank ' the mountain 
dew' with the exciseman and the landlord, not at 
the Wallace Inn at Gandercleugh, but at the sign 
of the Shoulder of Mutton in Newton-Stewart." 
The whole of the story of "Wandering Willie "was 
gathered by Mr. Train on the public road towards 
Creetown at the head of yonder bay. Mr. Train 
had a congenial fellow-collector of traditions, at 
Creetown, in Captain James Dennistoun, author 
of the "Legends of Galloway," a book which had 
quite an extensive popularity in those days. 

It ought to be said for Sir Walter Scott that it 
seems likely that when he wrote "Old Mortality," 
he was not so well acquainted with the history of 
Covenanter times, as he as always had credit for 
being. Later in life, he recorded in his "Tales of 
a Grandfather," some of the sufferings of the perse- 
cuted people with a touch of real feeling. The 



132 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

brutal murder of John Brown of Priesthill, he 
recounts in the way that might be expected of a 
man of his humane affections. But the perpetrator 
of that crime, and of others such, he had a few 
years before set up as his model cavalier. 

Many people have the idea, perhaps he had, 
that the Covenanters were a small dissenting body, 
like that to which their name is applied improperly 
in our days. They were the body of the nation, the 
same people who, at the Revolution, constituted 
the kingdom and Established Church of Scotland 
— that Established Church as it now stands, with 
all its dissenting branches. The hills and valleys 
of Galloway and adjoining districts abound in 
memorials and traditions of these suffering people. 
Occasionally the patriotic and religious sympathy 
breaks forth in song, as in Hislop's well known 
poem — 

" In a dream of the night I was wafted away 
To the moorlands of mist, where the martyrs lay, 
Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen 
Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green." 

Mr. Train, though of shallow historical know- 
ledge, was no mere dry-as-dust antiquarian. He 
was a man of taste, and of some poetical ability. 



JOSEPH TRAIN, j^^ 

Already he had pubHshed two successive volumes 
of poetry before his acquaintance with Scott began. 
His second volume met with a very favorable 
reception. But no sooner did he discover how he 
could be useful to the greater poet, than he aban- 
doned all ambitious aims for himself, and turned 
his efforts to promote the literary projects of his 
friend, and that without pay, and apparently with- 
out expectation that his name would ever be heard 
in connection with the work he did. I doubt 
whether history can adduce another such instance 
of a literary man so consecrating himself to be 
absorbed into the splendor of another. 



CHAPTER X. 

HILLS OF CARRICK — THE LAND OF BURNS — THE 
DOON — AYR — HENRY THE MINSTREL — HIGH- 
LAND MARY — BURNS— PAISLEY — TANNAHILL — 
ROBERT ALLAN — GLASGOW — KELVIN GROVE. 

Y carriage road from Newton-Stewart to 
Ayr, the traveller follows the course of 
the Cree until he reaches the moorlands. 
His road then leaves the river bank, 
and winds up through the dusky purple 
heather over the mountain barrier, 
which he crosses by the " Nick of the 
Balloch." Then opens upon him the view to the 
north, over the irregular, tumultuous hills of Carrick, 
into the land of Burns. But the most extensive view 
is not obtained until he reaches "Brown Carrick 
Hill," on the sea coast, about three miles south of 
the town of Ayr. When I first looked down from 




THE LAND OF BURNS. 1 35 

that summit, it was a ruddy afternoon about the 
beginning of September. Behind me lay those 
same Carrick hills, which I had crossed, not lofty, 
but tumbled together like the waves of the ocean 
just after a storm has ceased to rage ; before me, 
the long plain of Kyle with its curving shore 
extended far to the hills beyond Irvine, and over 
the ridges of those hills, blue in the distance, 
soared up the pyramidal summit of Ben Lomond. 
On the left, the magnificent Frith of Clyde, coming 
in from the Atlantic, spread, between the coast of 
Ayrshire and the sharply serrated fells of Arran, 
away northward, until it disappeared among the 
mountains of Bute and Argyll ; and in the midst 
of it, over against Arran, stood the precipitous 
" Ailsa Craig," to the height of eleven hundred feet, 
like a stupendous tower erected in the sea. To 
the east of the fertile plain of Kyle, covered with 
towns and villages, country houses and cultivated 
farms, where the land rises in elevation, my eye 
followed its "green acclivities" successively, until 
the horizon was bounded by *' the distant Cumnock 
hills." Near at hand, on the plain, by the sea, lay 
the compact town of Ayr, with its outlying villas 
and gardens ; and close to the foot of the hill, on 



136 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

which I stood, the "Banks and Braes o' Bonny 
Doon." The woods which clothe the valley of 
that now classic stream were heavy with foliage ; 
the shadow of the hill was partly spread over them. 
All the rest of the scene was bathed in the warm 
light of the September afternoon. Among the 
trees, just within the shadow, stood the roofless 
walls of Alloway Kirk. And up from its clustering 
shrubbery, and out of the shadows, which lay 
around its base, into the full blaze of the sun, with 
the buoyant expression of perfect symmetry, rose 
the beautiful white choragic monument of Burns ; 
and at a little distance, free of the woods and 
beyond the shadow, I could recognize, from having 
seen its picture, ** The Auld Clay Biggin " where 
he was born. 

In this neighborhood, the memorials of the 
poet are clustered together, to the exclusion of 
almost everything else, although not far off is 
Turnberry Castle, birthplace of the Bruce, and 
scene of his first successful effort towards the 
liberation of his country. But even above that of 
the heroic king is held the memory of the inspired 
ploughman. 

At Ayr, the interest is divided with Wallace. 



HIGHLAND MARY. 1 37 

But that is poetry also. For Wallace is popularly 
known, directly or indirectly, through the heroic 
poem of " Henry the Minstrel," commonly known 
as "Blind Harry." Recently there were country 
people who had the whole of it by memory. When 
a little boy, I used to follow upon the hills a 
shepherd of our neighborhood, one Sandy Kirk, 
day after day, to hear him recite from that old 
Scottish epic. 

Up the river Ayr, we pass the scenes celebrated 
in the series of songs written by Burns on his 
Highland Mary, crowned by that noblest of all love 
songs, "To Mary in Heaven." Highland Mary, to 
what a tender and exalted renown is her name 
assigned ! — a synonym almost for that feminine 
loveliness which inspires the warmest and purest of 
youthful affection, as ennobled by sorrow, and the 
transfer of its object to the immortal life. How 
wonderful the power of genius ! It glorifies what- 
ever it touches. In comparison, the distinctions 
of rank are as nothing. By its gift, a splendor, 
denied to peeresses, before which their coronets 
are toys, has descended on the poor Ayrshire 
dairymaid. He who sang of her love and early 
death was no common songster, no mere prodigy 



138 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

to be wondered at because only a ploughman, but 
a man of intrinsic greatness, whose brief but power- 
ful utterances created an epoch in poetry. 

In the eighteenth century a philosphical system 
prevailed, which was narrow, cold, and earthy. 
But being level to the humblest understanding, it 
became the popular style of thinking, to a degree 
of universality, perhaps never attained by any 
other. All ranks of the educated used its terms. 
Its narrow experience, its sensuous ideas, its mon- 
archy of the understanding, its ignoring of mental 
resources beyond the range of the bodily senses, 
were all accepted alike by Christian and un-Chris- 
tian. Anything beyond its limits was not to be 
thought of Christians took it to be identical with 
Scripture ; they explained Scripture by it, and 
unbelievers used it with the greater effect that it 
had nothing Christian in it. Bald and hard, with- 
out recognition of original affections or imagina- 
tion, it had no place for poetry or spiritual religion. 
The one was set down as a dream, and the other a 
delusion. Poetry was almost extinguished. Poets, 
objects of pity, if not of contempt, dragged out 
their lives in garrets, and died in debt or starva- 
tion, or had to write prose for a living, and court 



GOETHE AND BURNS. I^q 

the muse by stealth. So toiled Goldsmith, and 
fell in the middle of his days ; Gray lived by his 
place in the university; and Cowper, secluded from 
the world, as if he had not belonged to it, wrote 
without much regard to its approbation. 

Into the midst of that world, so cold, so shal- 
low, so formal and so exceedingly self satisfied, 
two men, in two different countries, were plunged 
simultaneously, — men destined to open richer 
springs of poetry than the world had known since 
the days of Milton. One was born in wealth, the 
other in poverty ; one was educated in art, and 
with all the appliances of science, the other was 
left to the spontaneous development of nature. 
The poor self-educated man died young ; the rich 
and well-educated lived to a mature old age. 
The works of the latter were very numerous, 
those of the former not few, but of brief extent. 
And yet those two men, so different in their 
circumstances, produced similar changes upon 
the poetry of their respective countries. The 
poetry of Germany before Goethe, was, with the 
exception of some hymns, slow, heavy, and cum- 
bersome. The genius of Goethe filled it with 
sparkling life, and enriched it with new sources of 



I^O ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

interest. Burns, conscious of power, but unaware 
of the way in which his power stood related to the 
world, came forward, not timidly — he never did 
anything timidly — but with modesty, as one whom 
the public might not recognize. His poems, 
although of no great length, covered a breadth of 
territory which poetry had not latterly dared, and 
presented some features entirely their own. The 
sensation they created was not a passing admira- 
tion ; it was a revolution — a revolution in poetic 
expression. The old formal, frigid poetic diction 
was abandoned for the more earnest one of common 
life and real people. It was a revolution in respect 
to directness and animated energy of expression, 
and bold imagery direct from Nature — the out- 
spoken language of every passion in its place. 
It was a revolution in poetic thought ; topics and 
imagery unemployed before, were presented in a 
manifestation of affections quite out of the old 
routine. 

Poetry, it is true, is an art ; and yet, like every 
other art, has more than art in it ; and that in it 
which is not art is the best part of it. And Burns, 
in his early productions, was impelled to culture of 
the art, not as such, but as the expression of that 



THE FOE TRY OF B URNS. 1 4 1 

within him which was more than art. Accord- 
ingly, his poetic diction was his own. It was 
used not because appropriated of old, but because 
it embodied the force of the conception or passion 
within him. And he held back nothing from either 
timidity or caution. He had no fear of personal 
publicity ; no anxieties about appearing in his 
productions with a faultless propriety ; he spoke 
himself without reserve, and in his own way. 

In his rhythm there was a new mode of music. 
It was not an old lilt which had become wearisome 
by endless repetitions. It was a fresh creation, 
the measured movement of a new mind ; and 
varied as the activities of that mind itself, from 
the most concentrated utterance of passion through 
many changes of grave and gay, the playful and 
satiric, to the tenderest and gentlest of the affec- 
tions. Good sense and briliant imagery are indis- 
pensable to good poetry, but without a living 
rhythm they are not poetry. So intangible is that 
matter of rhythm, and yet so powerful with the 
human spirit, that it will determine, and actually 
does determine as poetry what is neither brilliant 
nor very important sense. In Burns the most 
stirring rhythm is ever the native movement of 
either brilliant or otherwise striking thought. 



142 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

There is in the poetic temperament, and essential 
to it, an intensified sensibiUty, whereby one suffers 
in pain, and enjoys in pleasure more keenly than 
other men. Even the comparatively sober Cowper 
said that he never knew a little pleasure. It is not 
merely that such a man is strongly affected by 
ideas formed in the mind, or by external things ; 
but, far more, the susceptibility to that strange 
magnetic glow, which diffuses itself through the 
whole being, as the prevenient dawn of a beautiful 
thought yet unrisen, constrains a man, by disabling 
him for every-thing else, to yield and wait. A gift 
of that kind, by which not only beautiful thoughts 
are announced, but insidious temptation is robed as 
an angel of light, is no less dangerous than it is 
fascinating. A real poet who resists temptation is 
victor over a stronger and more artful foe than com- 
mon men have to encounter, and if he fall he suffers 
a more extreme agony. To Burns's lot fell both. 
Not many of us are competent to judge him fairly. 
To the Master who gave the talents and knew 
the trials they imposed, let us leave the judgment 
and award. 

That his poems were in the Scottish dialect 
was little impediment to their popularity. It was 



I 



THE POE TRY OF B URNS. I ^^ 

felt that to learn the meaning of ten or a dozen 
words was a small price for the enjoyment 
obtained. His place was soon recognized as that 
of an English poet. And what neither he nor the 
men of his time anticipated, it proved the starting 
point of a new style of English poetry — Thomson, 
Cowper, Wordsworth, and their followers, the only 
other school which now is held in any esteem, in 
all their characteristic poems are painters of 
external nature, calm, meditative, mystic. The 
theme of Burns is man, nature is but the scenery 
in which he moves ; but man as seen through the 
sensibilities of the poetic temperament. 

About Mauchline and Kilmarnock we are in 
the land of his early manhood, and of his best and 
most characteristic productions. I was told by 
persons acquainted with traditions of the poet, on 
the spot, that he had an extensive local reputation 
several years before any of his productions appeared 
in print. A number of persons in, or near his own 
rank in life, farmers, lawyers, and others in Kilmar- 
nock, Mauchhne, Ayr and Tarbolton, his intimate 
friends, used to read his separate poems in manu- 
script, estimated his talents highly, and were not 
at all surprised at the popularity which he subse- 



I^ A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

quently obtained. To their society he owed more 
than to anything called education. Their meetings, 
debatings, and conversations were his encourage- 
ment and training, his culture, in weighing himself 
over against men, and drawing out and exercising 
his wonderful powers of conversation. He is said 
to have remarked upon his return from Edinburgh, 
where he had been admitted to the society of the 
most gifted, that he never heard any conversation 
superior to what he had often enjoyed among his 
companions at Tarbolton. 

Upon leaving Ayrshire, and arriving in Paisley, 
it seems as if we must have left the realms of 
poetry. In that smoky, noisy, busy metropolis of 
shawl, carpet, and cotton weaving, there cannot 
be many attractions for the muses, one would 
think. And yet, even there, at one of the cotton 
hand-looms of Paisley, labored and sang one of the 
sweetest singers of Scotland. Robert Tannahill 
had a rude desk affixed to his loom. He composed 
while at work, and when he had completed a 
stanza in his mind, would turn round and write 
it, and so go on with another. Thus were com- 
posed those songs, many of which still retain their 
place as favorites in his native land, and some of 



GLASGOIV. i^c 

which have enjoyed a popularity v/here his own 
name has never been uttered. 

After further acquaintance with Paisley, we 
discover that among its noisy workshops Tannahill 
was far from being alone in his devotion to the 
muse of the lyre. His friends, William McLaren 
and Robert Allan, were both more productive 
than he, as both enjoyed a longer life, and both 
were, like himself, hand-loom weavers. Of the two,- 
Allan was most successful. His song, "Queen 
Mary's Escape from Loch Leven Castle," is well 
known in the United States. But few have so 
effectively as Tannahill united natural scenery to 
the sentiment of his songs. Thus has the pen of 
the poor Paisley weaver thrown an additionaj 
charm over the places which he loved — over "The 
Bonny Wood o' Craigie Lea," "The Braes o' 
Gleniffer," and "Stanley-Green Shaw." 

Glasgow, the birthplace of the steam engme 
and of steam navigation ; the city of iron ships and 
Macintoshes ; the third city of the British isles in 
wealth and commerce, bears above all other cities 
in Scotland the honors of enterprise. Three hun- 
dred years ago Glasgow, then an old slumberous 
town which had never been of much account, 

K 



14.6 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

suddenly awoke to a new life with the Reformation. 
Ever since, her people have stood firmly by the 
Presbyterian cause. On the braes of Langside 
over yonder, to the south of the river, her citizens, 
supporting their soldiers in the hour of battle by a 
movement of their own, secured the final defeat of 
Queen Mary. In days of later persecution these 
streets were the headquarters of the Covenanters 
of the West. 

But it was the union of the two kingdoms which, 
opening up the ports of the New World to Scottish 
enterprise, laid the real foundations for the pros- 
perity of Glasgow. America has been the making 
of her fortune. And with the accelerated growth 
of the United States, within the last fifl .• years, 
has hers coincided. Her business, however, is far 
from being confined to that quarter. It goes out 
to "a' the arts the win' can blaw ;" and does not 
any longer depend upon the blawing of the winds, 
but traverses every sea upon sheets of iron by the 
impulse of steam. Nor does it consist in commerce 
alone ; it is largely concerned also in manufactures. 
The first and last impressions which a traveller 
usually gets and retains of the western metropolis 
of Scotland are of the rattling of drays, the clangor 



GLASGOW. 147 

of hammers, the roaring of forges, the hissing of 
spindles, the clatter of looms, and clouds of murky- 
smoke, with people rushing in every direction, as 
if something desperate were up somewhere. 

Yet busy Glasgow has also her honors of 
science and literature. It is no common good 
fortune to be able to boast the names of Dr. Black, 
of James Watt, of Dr. Thomas Reid, and of Thomas 
Campbell, the chemist, the machinist, the philo- 
sopher, and the poet. And then, besides these 
and others in the regions of learning and discovery, 
one cannot help thinking of Motherwell and his 
*'Jeanie Morrison," and of the college days of 
Professors Wilson and Blackie, who have both 
thrown the light of song over other parts of their 
native land ; and sometimes also, by a local asso- 
ciation, in a no less pleasant way, of some humbler 
name. 

The next day after my arrival in the city, I 
walked out towards its northwestern quarter, 
where the new University stands. From a terrace 
on the opposite side of a valley, laid out as a park, 
I was looking with admiration upon that large and 
beautiful structure. Down in the valley among 
the trees and lawns I saw a brook winding its way, 



1^8 ^i SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

"What stream is that?" I said to a bystander. 
''Tliat is the Kelvin," was the reply. The name 
brought up pleasant reccollections from my boy- 
hood of a song which was popular then, as wedded 
to a national air, the only production of its author, 
Dr. Lyle, as far as I know, that ever attained 
popularity. Descending to the banks of the stream, 
I was shocked to find it polluted with manufactur- 
ing filth, brought down from the mills above. 
Nevertheless, I could not dismiss from memory 
the recurring echo of " Let us hie to Kelvin Grove, 
bonny lassie, O," and discovered with gratification 
that the laborious men of Glasgow admitted the 
charm also, in calling the newly-laid-out park by 
the name of" Kelvin Grove." It was really delight- 
ful to perceive that those large-minded toiling men, 
whose gigantic enterprise has created a navigable 
river out of a creek, and introduced merchant 
ships from every sea into the bosom of their city, 
whose commerce extends to all parts of the world, 
and who upon that river are building more iron 
ships than all the rest of the British empire 
together, could yet, in the midst of the hurry and 
clangor of their business, appreciate a little gem 
of a song. 



CHAPTER XI. 

WEST HIGHLANDS — THE CLANS — ARGYLL — THE 
MacCALLUM more — THE LAND OF LORNE — 
THE MACDOUGALS — A GENERAL VIEW OF THE 
LAND OF OSSIAN — MULL — THE MACLEANS — 
ARTORNISH CASTLE — THE MACDONALDS — 
LORD OF THE ISLES — lONA — STAFFA. 

N visiting Scotland, I had no other 
purpose than to look at it. Only as I 
travelled from place to place did I 
become impressed with its literary- 
associations. But afterwards, in think- 
ing over my experience there, noth- 
ing else seemed equally remarkable. 
And what I now write is not designed to be an 
account of travels, but solely to point out the rela- 
tions of song and scenery in that land, which I 
think can be best done by showing how a know- 
ledge of them rose upon my own mind. 




I go ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

A handsome steamboat leaves Glasgow every 
morning", during the summer, and runs down the 
Clyde, and through the Kyles of Bute to Ardris- 
haig, at the entrance of the Crinan Canal, in the 
West Highlands. On a bright morning in Septem- 
ber I stepped on board, and after a pleasant sail 
of a few hours, found myself among the sons of the 
Gael. 

Scotland is a nation consisting of two races, as 
different one from the other as English and Welsh. 
The Lowlanders are largely of Germanic descent, 
and speak a dialect of English ; the Highlanders 
are Celts, and use their ancient Celtic tongue. 
The former are chiefly incomers within the know- 
ledge of history ; the latter have occupied their 
land from time immemorial, being the descendants 
of those Caledonians who never submitted to 
Roman arms. Their defeat by Agricola only 
confined them to the mountains west of the 
Grampians, which they still retain. Yet one 
branch of the people is not more Scottish than the 
other. Their history and traditions, though in 
many respects different, are cherished alike by 
both. Scotland is their common country, her 
freedom, her honor and her religion their common 



DUKE OF ARG YLL. I e I 

inheritance. Nor did I find any difference affecting 
the nationahty of song, except that which consists 
in the ethnic difference of style. 

In the sail of that day, which terminated at 
Oban, on the coast of Lome, we passed by or 
through a large part of the actual or titular 
dominions of the MacCallum More, or chief of 
the clan Campbell, at present George Douglas 
Campbell, Duke of Argyll, heir of one of the most 
honorable peerages in Europe, himself a highly 
gifted man, whose writings have earned for him a 
reputation beyond that of his rank. Lome, the 
district of Argyll on which we were landed, gives 
the title of Marquis to his eldest son, who is Marquis 
of Lome until he succeeds as Duke of Argyll. 

This wild land of Lome was in early times one 
of more than common importance, being the seat 
of power in the Scottish Dalriadan kingdom, con- 
taining its capital and the palace of its Kings. 
In the beginning of the sixth century after Christ, 
a colony from Ireland of that Celtic race called 
Dalriads, was planted here. Being of the same 
blood and language with the Pictish population, 
they readily became their countrymen. The 
Dalriad chiefs soon rose to superiority among their 



1^2 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Pictish peers, and by the middle of the ninth 
century, succeeded to a wider dominion .than had 
previously belonged to any one sovereign in these 
quarters. That was the power which subsequently 
extended its rule over all the Highlands, then over 
the northeastern coast, annexed to itself Strath- 
Clyde, took in Galloway, and contended with 
England for the dales of the south. In short, this 
little Marquisate of Lome was the nest-egg by the 
side of which all the other acquisitions were laid, 
which as a whole made up the kingdom of Scotland. 
Its old capital, Beregonium, or whatever else it 
was called, has disappeared, without leaving a 
trace save such as lies beneath the ground ; but 
its palace of Dunstaffnage is still, as a ruin, well 
taken care of. 

After it had ceased to be the residence of kings, 
Lome came into the possession of the clan Mac- 
dougal. In days when the Bruce was a fugitive 
among these wilds, John of Lome, from his rela- 
tionship to Comyn, slain by Bruce at Dumfries, 
having attached himself to the English side, 
encountered him with superior numbers, defeated 
his little band of followers, and nearly took his life. 
The King escaped by leaving his mantle in the 



THE LAND OF LORNE. 1^3 

^^yij^g" grasp of one of his assailants. The brooch 
found on it long remained a trophy in the house of 
Macdougal. It has recently been presented by the 
heir of that house to Queen Victoria. When better 
fortune had befallen King Robert, he remembered 
his Highland enemy, and inflicted upon him an 
overwhelming defeat. John Macdougal fled to 
England. His castle of Dunstaffnage was taken, 
and a large part of his possessions were confiscated. 
Subsequently they were recovered ; but female 
heirs again divided and alienated them, the most 
of them passing into the hands of the Campbell 
of Argyll, while the chieftainship of the clan 
Macdougal descended to the branch of Dunolly. 
Though now shorn of its earlier importance, that 
ancient family still retains an honorable place 
among the gentry of the Highlands. Their castle 
of Dunolly near Oban is now in ruins ; but their 
chief occupies a more comfortable residence in its 
neighborhood. 

With once more the good fortune of a clear day, 
which is by no means a matter of course here, I 
ascended to the top of an elevation to the north of 
Oban, commanding an extensive view on all sides. 
The scene was one of wild and irregular mountains, 



1^4 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

carved deep with glens and gorges, and inlaid with 
belts of loch and narrow patches of verdure, while 
full through the middle of all, from north to south, 
extended a vast broad plain filled with the sea. 

On the furthest southern extremity, where 
Loch Linnhe opens into the Atlantic, rise the 
distant summits of Jura, high among the inter- 
vening islands which in various magnitudes speck 
the shining surface of the waters. Along the whole 
western side of the loch the dark and lofty island 
of Mull, and north of the Sound of Mull, the similar 
country of Morven, fill the horizon. Showers of 
rain in three different places from their cloudy 
reservoirs around the mountain tops are falling 
dusky and grey among the far distant valleys ; 
especially one is trailing a majestic train along the 
face of the precipices in the direction of Ardgour. 
The masses and outlines of the mountains look 
still more dark and dreary through the pale grey 
veil of rain — a most suitable attire in which to see 
the kingdom of Fingal. Between that romantic 
but dreary land and this of Lome, spreads the 
broad Loch Linnhe, with the long, low, fertile 
island of Lismore, and her smaller companions, 
embedded in its waves. In a direct line northward. 



LOCH LINNHE. I c c 

as far as the eye can reach, that sheet of water 
extends. The valley in which it lies actually 
crosses the whole breadth of Scotland, until, 
beyond Inverness, it again sinks beneath the sea» 
and forms the bed of Moray Frith. On its eastern 
side, and south of where I stand, lies Oban, close 
along the shore of her spacious harbor, but con- 
cealed from view by the heathery heights which 
enclose it round. Down below on the northern 
side, and near where Loch Etive parts company 
with Loch Linnhe, to enter upon her own devious 
way among the glens, are the remains of Dun- 
staffnage Palace. And beyond Loch Etive and 
the narrow strip of verdure on the shore rise the 
brown hills, group after group, in successive masses 
northward over the whole extent of Appin, until 
far beyond and over all, soars the grey head of 
Ben Nevis. I have not visited Ben Nevis yet ; but 
an inner presentiment assures me that yonder 
lofty peak is his. On the east, and seemingly at 
no great distance, in mighty mass overtopping 
his brother giants among whose glens Loch Etive 
winds away and hides herself, stands the triple- 
crowned Ben Cruachan. 

Notwithstanding patches of culture here and 



iq5 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

there, the expression of the whole vast scene 
around me is that of desohition. This dominion 
of the MacCuUum More is most majestic, but 
very unproductive. It is almost entirely hunting 
ground ; a wilderness, houseless, fenceless, at 
present purple with blooming heather, grey with 
upland pasturage, or bald with iron-colored rocks, 
and variously intersected with the sea ; in great 
part not incapable of culture, but uncultivated. 

And this is the land of Ossian. But who was 
Ossian } The name which gives title to the poems. 
And they, whether the production of the son of 
Fingal, or the son of Pherson, are of Highland 
birth, and natives of this singularly picturesque 
country. 

From Oban I sailed round the island of Mull to 
lona and Staffa, obtaining by the way a view of 
lura, Islay, Colonsay, and the Southern Hebrides 
in general, almost every island of which has its 
own poetic honors. 

On the shores of Mull, of Morven and of the 
neighboring islands, I found myself within the 
ancient dominions of the Macdonalds and Macleans, 
at one time the greatest of the Highland clans. 
When the Macdonald was Lord of the Isles, and 



AR TORNISH CASTLE. j ^ -r 

from his castle of Artornish asserted his superi- 
ority over the other clans, the Maclean, in his 
stronghold of Duart on the opposite side of the 
Sound of Mull, proved an effective rival to hold 
his aggressions within bounds. Both clans are 
now broken and scattered. It was unfortunate for 
the Macleans that they adhered to the cause of 
the banished house of Stuart after it had ceased 
to be royal. They accordingly lost their prestige 
and were enfeebled as a clan ; while the Campbells, 
with equal consistency in their hereditary policy, 
sustaining the Revolution as they had long sus- 
tained and suffered for its principles, were elevated 
to higher steps of prosperity. Still the great and 
turbulent clan Gillean, has left monuments of its 
former power in the traditions of the islands, in 
the ruined towers of Duart and Lochbuy, and in 
the sculptured tombs of its chiefs in the cemetery 
of lona ; and among living men has its representa- 
tives in various departments of enterprise and 
learning. 

I was now among the scenes celebrated in 
Scott's " Lord of the Isles." The castle of Artornish, 
at least what remains of it, stands at the southward 
extremity of the district of Morven, on the very 



1^8 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

edge of the Sound of Mull, corresponding in situa- 
tion correctly to the opening verses of the poem : 

" 'Wake maid of Lome,' " the minstrel sung, 
Thy rugged halls, Artornish, rung. 
And the dark seas thy towers that lave. 
Heaved on the beach a softer wave, 
As 'mid the tuneful choir to keep 
The diapason of the deep," 

Angus Og, of the clan Macdonald, called Ron- 
ald by the poet, is the hero, and the heroine is 
Edith Macdougal, sister of the high chief of Lome. 
The adventures of the Bruce among these isles, 
between the animosity of Lome and the friendship 
of the master of Artornish, constitute the main 
interest of the first four cantos of the poem. 

Passing through this winding Sound of Mull, 
one is reminded of tales of barbarous warfare, and 
of appalling recklessness of human life. In the 
quiet bay of Tobermory, where our boat has 
rounded in, nearly three hundred years ago went 
down one of the ships of the great but unfortunate 
Spanish Armada. Captain Fareiga, with his ship 
the "Florida," having through many a danger 
weathered his way round the north of Scotland, 
put in here to obtain supplies of provisions. With 
the chief of the Macleans he agreed to pay for what 



WAR WITH THE MACDONALDS. jcq 

the people could bring him. Meanwhile Maclean 
borrowed a hundred Spanish marines to help him 
in a war with the Macdonalds. When the Don 
proposed to leave, he had not settled with the peo- 
ple for the provisions. Perhaps he thought the 
service of his marines a sufficient compensation, 
and that the people should look to their chief. 
Maclean sent his kinsman Donald Glas to adjust 
the business. No sooner did Donald appear on 
board than he was disarmed and detained as a 
prisoner. When the preparations to sail were 
complete, he was permitted to come on deck to 
take leave of his friends who had come with him. 
He secretly slipped a note for his chief into the 
hand of one of them as he went down the side of 
the ship, and himself hastily retreated to the cabin. 
He had discovered the powder magazine, and laid 
a train. To that he now set fire, and by the time 
his friends were out of the reach of danger, the 
"Florida" and more than three hundred human 
beings were blown to atoms. Only two lives were 
saved, neither of which was that of Donald Glas. 
From the Sound of Mull, going westward, we 
enter Loch Sunart, and then into the open sea, 
where, looking northward, we obtain a view of 



l6o ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

some of the northern Hebrides, the islands Muck 
and Rum and Eig and others, and as far as the 
Cuchulin mountains of Skye. Turning south, we 
pass between Col and Mull, with Tiree in the dis- 
tance westward, until we come near to " Ulva's 
Isle " and in sight of Staffa and lona. Far in the 
distance one can recognize lona by the church and 
tower, which stand between its low hills and the 
sea. 

The ruins of that Westminster of Highland 
Kings and nobility are profoundly interesting, but 
of less antiquity than I expected to see. Not 
much remains to testify of the Culdees ; of the 
structure erected by Columba, nothing. One 
chapel bears the name of Oran, his successor ; all 
the other ruins are clearly of the later Romish 
style. 

lona, literally the holy isle, is of small dimen- 
sions, only about three miles in length by one in 
breadth, and much of that area bleak, barren and 
of itself uninterestiug. Yet that little plain-feat- 
ured island has a history of hardly less duration 
than that of Great Britain ; and from the first 
records touching it has been a consecrated spot ; 
first, when the Druids made it the seat of their 



ION A. l6i 

heathen hierarchy, and when driven from every 
other place, the refuge of their order ; then the 
primitive seminary of Christain missions for the 
Highlands, and when that was overpowered by the 
aggressions of Rome, a long maintained strong- 
hold for the Papacy. Since the Reformation it 
has still been regarded with special reverence for 
the sake of the past. The principal interest which 
attaches to it now, is due to Columba and his 
school of missionaries, by whom the Highland 
Scots were converted to Christianity. Columba, 
his pupils and their followers, the Culdees, main- 
tained the integrity of their worship only about 
one hundred and fifty years. But that is the 
brightest period in the history of lona, the period 
of her widest and most benign influence, and in 
relation to which modern pilgrimages, no longer 
of superstition, but of reverence, have been made 
to her ruined shrines ; in relation to which it is 
that they have been hung with wreaths of eloquence 
and poetry from the hands of such men as Dr. 
Samuel Johnson, Wordsworth and Campbell. 

"Peace to their shades, the pure Culdees 
Were Albyn's earliest priests of God, 
Before an island of her seas 

By foot of Saxon monk was trod." 



1 62 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

At lona there was sounding in my memory all 
the time, ming-Hng itself with ecclesiastical history 
and tradition, Campbell's charming poem of " Reul- 
lura ; and the only reason why I wanted to get a 
glance at the island of Tiree was that it is men- 
tioned there. 

South of lona, on the shores of Colonsay, one 
is reminded of Leyden's ballad of the "Mermaid 
and the Gem of Colonsay." And the Ettrick 
Shepherd, by his weird ballad of the Abbot 
MacKinnon, has connected his name with both 
lona and Staffa. 

"Isle of Columba's cell, 
Where Christian charity's soul-cheering spark, 
(Kindled from heaven between the light and dark 
Of time) shone like the morning star, farewell ! — " 

It is not surprising that Staffa should be the 
theme of repeated poetic attempts. Such it would 
be in any country where men are capable of appre- 
ciating the sublime or wonderful in nature. But 
there, as elsewhere, in the presence of Nature's 
wonders, poetry seems to shrink and hold back 
half her power. The only poem of the kind, which 
I ever felt it helpful to conception to repeat in the 
presence of its subject, is Coleridge's Hymn to 
Mount Blanc. To the general remark Words- 
worth's sonnets on Staffa are no exception. 



STAFF A. 1 53 

In size that island is much less than lona, from 
which it stands to the north seven miles and a 
half. It is simply a mass of rock rising abruptly 
from the sea to the height of one hundred and 
forty-four feet, supporting an irregular plateau ol 
a mile and a half in circumference, covered with 
rich green pasture. Its sides are precipitous 
nearly all round, but of irregular elevation. 
Highest on the side facing south, the whole 
structure slopes down towards the west and north. 
To an observer coming from lona, the appearance 
of the cliff, at a little distance, is that of a broad 
belt of closely arranged pillars around a doric 
temple. The colonnade seems to stand upon 
horizontal rock, and to support a roof compacted 
of smaller and irregularly massed crystals of basalt, 
as if the whole had been a temple completely 
built, and then, by an earthquake, shattered in its 
roof and sunk slopingly into the sea to the depth 
of the upper steps of the stylobate in front, and 
half the height of the colonnade on the side, and 
crushed into ruins at the further end. On the east 
side of the south front opens a lofty portal, running 
up almost to the roof, like one of the great 
entrances of the cathedral of Peterborough, with a 



164 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

majesty which increases upon one as he draws 
near. This is Fingal's Cave. But how poorly 
does the word cave describe the grandeur of that 
entrance, or the airy splendor of the aisle to which 
it admits ! 

Our steamer stood off at some distance, while 
we, the passengers, got into boats and rowed close 
up to the foot of the precipice. When winds are 
high, the sea rushes into the cave with such 
violence that it cannot be entered with boats. 
Fortunately we had calm weather, and our boats 
pushed in, one after another, on a perfectly 
tranquil surface. Internally, the cave reminds one 
of the nave of a Gothic cathedral ; but is fully 
pervaded by sunlight. The floor is the surface of 
the sea, which runs almost its whole length of two 
hundred and twenty-seven feet. Although the 
water was deep, we could see distinctly to the 
white bottom. On either side the walls consist 
solely of regular upright basalt columns, and the 
ceiling, about seventy feet high from the level of 
low tide, seems to be made of the capitals of such 
columns, from which all has been cut away below, 
leaving them to support each other by their pres- 
sure, and constitute a natural and elegantly con- 



FINGAUS CAVE. 165 

structed arcade. On each side of the watery floor, 
rise rows of steps, higher as nearer to the side-wall, 
like the parallel rows of benches on either side of 
the British House of Commons. And these rows 
of steps are also truncated basalt columns. Both 
in the water and along the sides, the rocks, mainly 
of iron hue, are variously colored of bright and 
animating violet and rosy tints, rendering a visit 
to Fingal's Cave, in a calm and sunny day, an event 
to make the heart dance for joy. 

The effect of sound, deliberately and musically 
made, is not a confused reduplication of echoes, 
but a rich, ringing harmonious resonance. 

A number of other caves perforate the rocky 
foundations of the little isle, and three of them, at 
least, the Scallop Cave, the Boat Cave, and Mac- 
Kinnon's Cave, add separate elements to the admi- 
ration with which one thinks of the whole. 

If lona takes us back to the antiquity of the 
church, Staffa carries us far beyond into the anti- 
quities of creation. 



CHAPTER XII. 

LEADING CLANS OF THE MIDDLE AGES — DUN- 
STAFFNAGE— THE STONE OF DESTINY— TREATY 
OF ARTORNISH — THE MACLEANS OF DUART — 
EXTENT OF THEIR DOMINION — THE LADY 
ROCK. 

UR excursion to lona ended by return- 
ing through the Sound of Mull, and 
crossing the intervening arm of the 
sea to Oban. The sun was going 
down in rosy light, the shadow of 
Ben More was stretching far to the 
eastward, and all that side of Mull was black as its 
heather, and rain clouds were hanging drearily 
about Ben Cruachan and other mountains of Lome, 
as we issued from the Sound and encountered the 
strong current of the incoming tide. No silent 
increase of depth was that tide, impreceptible save 




D UNS TAFFNA GE. I ^^ 

by the tranquil tendency in one direction ; but a 
turbulent, raging torrent, with foaming waves, like 
an Alpine river of stupendous size. 

At this point one stands in the midst of the 
scenes of the most aspiring Highland ambition. 
Dunstaffnage, Artornish and Duart, the castles 
respectively of the Macdougal, the Macdonald and 
the Maclean, mediaeval rivals for sovereignty of the 
whole, stand almost within sight of each other ; in 
their mouldering remains, a melancholy lesson on 
the vanity of human quarrels. The chieftianships 
are extinct, or only nominal, their clan system 
dissolved, and their palaces deserted ruins. If 
Dunstaffnage enjoyed the royal honors, which its 
competitors failed to attain, it was not as belonging 
to Macdougal, but of earlier date. An extra- 
ordinary fortune, however, has attended the 
succession of that power once resident in Dun- 
staffnage. The marble throne, or stone of Destiny, 
on which the ancient Dalriad kings were crowned, 
once stood in its chief apartment. Fergus, the 
founder of that line, is said to have brought it with 
him from Ireland, and to have set it up first in 
lona. A similarly ancient prophecy foretold that 
wherever it was deposited the Scots should rule. 



1 58 A SUMMER K AMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

"Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum 
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem." 

" Unless the fates are faithless grown, 
And prophet's voice be vain, 
Where'er is found this sacred stone, 
The Scottish race shall reign." 

In the ninth century it was removed from Dun- 
staffnage to Scone, near Perth, where for many 
generations Scottish kings were crowned. In 1296, 
Edward I., of England, among other means for 
extinguishing Scottish nationaHty, had it removed 
to London. At the present day, there stands in 
Westminster Abbey, in the chapel of Edward the 
confessor, one of the plainest old-fashioned straight 
wooden chairs. Within that casing appears a white 
stone slab, which is the true seat. That is the Scot- 
tish stone of Destiny. It was Edward's purpose to 
make himself and his successors kings of Scotland, 
and to defeat Destiny and her predictions. But 
Destiny, as usual, would have her own way, and 
also, as usual, by means eluding human foresight. 
Scotland, in spite of the indomitable efforts of her 
conqueror, would not stay conquered, and finally, 
after his death, succeeded in throwing off the yoke 
of England altogether, and setting up her own 
King. In course of time, an heir of that king mar- 



THE STONE OF DESTINY. 



169 



ried a daughter of the king of England. A little 
further on, and the only heir to the throne of 
England was the King of Scotland. The descend- 
ant of the Bruce succeeded to the throne of 
Edward. And a Scot once more ruled where his 
own chair of Destiny was planted. All succeeding 
monarchs of the three kingdoms claim their right 
through that Scottish line, and receive their crown 
upon that stone, w^iich once conferred its more 
limited dominion up yonder in Dunstafifnage. The 
seat of a pett}^ khig in the West Highlands has 
become the coronation chair of a powerful empire. 
From the first, the dominion it represented was 
one of land and sea, islands and mainland. It is so 
still. But from Highland lochs and half desert 
islets, that dominion has extended to all the oceans 
of the globe, and to the residence of two hundred 
millions of mankind. A remarkable history for a 
piece of stone. Not without reason, apparently, 
did Scotsmen take the removal of that palladium 
of theirs serenely ; and never have been urgent for 
its restoration. In as far as they believed the 
augury connected with it, they must have felt that, 
in carrying it off, "the lang-shanked southerone 
had caught a tartar." 



I^O ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

The illustrious chief of Artornish used to deport 
himself as actual monarch of the West Highlands. 
Although not so acknowledged, he often humbled 
the strongest of his rivals in their wars of competi- 
tion with him, and did not shrink occasionally from 
measuring himself with the King, who issued his 
mandates from Stirling, as witness the battles of 
Harlaw and of Inverlochy. 

Artornish also entered into an independent 
treaty with Edward IV. of England, in which that 
monarch, through his deputies and commissioners, 
pledged himself to pay the Lord of the Isles a stipu- 
lated sum, on condition of assistance in subduing the 
Kingdom of Scotland to English rule. In case the 
plan proved successful, the Lord of the Isles and 
James Earl of Douglas, who was also one of the 
allies, were to divide equally between them the 
country taken from the king, and hold it, together 
with their own hereditary dominions, on condition 
of homage and fealty to the crown of England for- 
ever. Though no serious evil to the kingdom of 
Scotland came out of that treaty, for the reign of 
Edward IV. was too much occupied with wars, and 
pleasures elsewhere, to admit of carrying out 
efficiently his projects for Scotland, yet its existence 



LADY ROCK. lyj 

proves how fully Macdonald held himself inde- 
pendent of the King of Scotland. 

In the fifteenth century the Macleans were at 
the summit of their fortune. Their possessions 
extended over Mull, Tyree, Coll, Jura, Scarba, and 
many other smaller islands ; on the mainland they 
held Ardgour and Lochaber, and divided Morven 
with the Macdonalds, Lochiel, with the Camerons, 
and Duror and Glencoe, with Lome ; and their 
ramifications, into new, and over subordinate clans, 
carried their influence far beyond the bounds of 
their definite territory. Although there were sev- 
eral chiefs among them, especially of Duart, of 
Lochbuy, of Coll, and of Ardgour, the acknowl- 
edged high chief of the whole clan was Maclean 
of Duart. 

Leavincr Artornish behind, we passed Castle 
Duart on the right, and at the, distance from it 
of about two miles, the Lady Rock, a low, bare 
isolated reef in the sea. The tide was surging up 
around the latter, climbing over it, and would soon 
submerge it, and smooth the surf into a deep and 
steady stream. 

Everything here has a history. These low- 
lying rocks just visible at half tide, have their 



iy2 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

share in the records of human events, and their 
own inheritance of poetry. They are the central 
point of scenery in Joanna BailUe's metrical drama, 
" The Family Legend," and historically connected 
with an important event in the feuds of two great 
clans. 

Lachlan Cattanach Maclean succeeded to the 
chieftainship of Duart in 15 13. His wife was the 
Lady Elizabeth Campbell, sister of the third earl 
of Argyll. Not quite two years had they been 
married, when the chief's fancy changed, and he 
became more ardently attached to the daughter 
of one of his own vassal chiefs. A man of violent 
passions, and of little conscience, he now desired 
to be rid of his wife by some means not to involve 
him in war with her powerful kindred. The better 
to accomplish his purpose, he multiplied attentions 
to her, with the best show of affection he could 
command. Among other thoughtful designs for 
her entertainment, one fine evening, he ordered out 
his best appointed galley, and invited her to a sail 
with him upon the tranquil sea. Without antici- 
pation of anything but pleasure, she accepted. 
After sailing about under the setting sun and the 
slowly descending twilight, it was a pleasant whim 



MACLEAN OF DUART. I^^ 

to land upon those barren rocks, and might be 
only romantic, or amusing. But suddenly turning 
from his wife, Maclean entered his galley and 
rowed away, leaving her there alone. She \\'lis 
far from any ear that could hear her cries, night 
was deepening about her, and the tide was rising 
and would soon silence her lamentations forever. 
No mortal should know what had become of her, 
except her husband and his oarsmen, in whose 
silence he had perfect confidence. 

How he rested that night history does not 
record. Next day he wrote to the Earl of Argyll, 
announcing and bewailing the sudden death of his 
sister, the Lady Maclean. The Earl in his reply 
requested that her body should be deposited in the 
burial ground of her father's family. It was indispu- 
tably reasonable. All preparations for a stately 
funeral were made by Maclean, who, at the head 
of a large retinue of mourners, conducted the coffin 
of his late wife to its destined resting place. He 
was respectfully met by a delegation of the Camp- 
bells, and requested to deposit his " precious 
charge " in an apartment fitted up for the purpose, 
while he should meet the family more composedly 
in private. Upon entering he found them taking 



ly^ A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

their seats at the dinner table. Solemnly, as 
befitted the occasion, the Earl welcomed his 
brother-in-law, and introduced him to the lady at 
the head of the table, in whom, to his utter con- 
sternation, Lachlan Cattanach saw his own wife 
alive and well. 

One of the boatmen who rowed the galley to 
the rock, had been deeply moved by the tears and 
cries of the poor despairing woman ; and no sooner 
got back to land, than he persuaded one of the 
chiefs body guard, whose humanity he thought he 
could trust, to help him to rescue her. He had a 
boat in a little bay, called Loch Don, not far off. 
Under cover of night, and the shores of the bay, 
they put off hastily, and reached the reef in time, 
and not much more than just in time to save the 
lady from a fearful death. Rowing over to the 
opposite side, they landed her on the coast of 
Lome, from which, in the course of the second 
day, she reached the castle of Inverary. What 
came of the noble fellows who rescued her, we are 
not informed. They certainly did not flourish 
under the favor of Lachlan Maclean after that. 

Why he and his followers did not meet the 
immediate punishment, to be expected in such a 



MA CLEAN A SSA SSINA TED. j ^ e 

case, might be accounted for by the fact that he 
had taken the precaution of heavily arming- both 
himself and them. But that is not enough. There 
were means of vengance belonging to the Camp- 
bell, in his own castle, which would have overcome 
all that. But then there were the strong High- 
land feelings of honor touching the protection due 
to guests. And by the earnest solicitations of the 
late wife herself, employed, no doubt, upon her 
brother before the meeting took place, the villain 
of a husband was allowed to return uninjured. It 
may also have been thought that to leave him to 
a life-long infliction of the shame and contempt 
due to his conduct would be the severest of 
punishment. 

Lachlan married the mistress for whom he had 
attempted the monstrous crime, and survived many 
years, but did not escape the avenger to the end. 
" This worthless chief of Maclean," says the clan 
Seneachie, who narrates the story, **the only worth- 
less one, I am happy to say, of his race, lived to a 
great age ; nevertheless, vengeance pursued him, 
and his end was such, as may indeed be justified — 
he was killed in his bed, in Edinburgh, by Campbell, 
of Achchallader, brother to the injured Lady 
Elizabeth. 



1^6 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

Joanna Baillie, in her fine drama on this theme, 
has given an entirely different character to the 
chief, and altered some of the facts, but has not, as 
seems to me, improved upon the historical account, 
in a dramatic point of view. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE COUNTRY OF OSSIAN- 
STEWART OF APPIN- 
GLENCOE — BEN NEVIS- 



-LOCH LINNHE — CLAN 
-POEMS OF OSSIAN — 
■LOCHIEL — THE CAME- 



RON COUNTRY — CHARLES EDWARD STEWART — 
RISING OF THE CLANS IN 1 745 — MACDONALD 
OF CLAN RONALD — INVERLOCHY. 

^F Loch Linnhe, that great broad avenue 
of water, into the heart of the High- 
lands. The morning was misty, with 
a thin drizzhng rain, as we steamed 
out of the harbor of Oban, past the 
"high perched ruins of DunoUy Castle, 
and the broader mass of Dunstaffnage, and the 
entrance of Loch Etive, between the island of 
Lismore and the coast of Lorr^e. Physically un- 
comfortable, it was yet in some respects the most 
suitable weather for a tour into the country of 

M 




1^8 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Ossian. Cloud and mist are as really parts of the 
scenery of his Highland rhapsodies as are the 
mountains and the sea. And although our motion 
through the water was not by the " winds as they 
pour from Lena," yet over the same water of which 
he sang we also " rushed with joy through the foam 
of the deep ;" '* we rose on the waves with songs." 
That morning I fell in with a jovial company, for it 
was the time of shooting, and when tourists were 
abroad in the land. Some were Englishmen, going 
in regular mountain trim of grey or other sober- 
colored woolen, with thick stockings up to the 
knees, and small clothes coming down only to two 
inches below the knees, with heavy clumsy shoes, 
to rough it in the Highlands ; a few were Germans, 
ladies and gentlemen, looking upon everything 
with intelligent curiosity; and quite a number were 
Scotchmen returning from their business in the 
South to enjoy their autumn holiday in their 
" native Highland Home." Of these the greater 
number wore the common city dress, but others, 
feeling perhaps that this was a suitable occasion to 
gratify their native taste, and once more "on wi' 
the tartan," were equipped in full Highland cos- 
tume. And a most splendid costume it is — in its 



LOCH LINNHE. lyg 

finest array, the most splendidly picturesque worn 
by men. At the same time, to me, as a Lowlander, 
to whose eye it was a novelty — I had seen it before 
only in some of the regiments in Edinburgh — there 
was a look of discomfort about the knees, on that 
cool drizzly morning. In the company we had also 
a young and very modest lord, the heir of a great 
name, of high titles and wealth, tall and handsome, 
very plainly dressed, and one of the most unpre- 
tending men I ever saw. He said little, but listened 
respectfully to others, and what he did say was in a 
quiet deferential way, as if his opinion had no right 
to settle anything. There was no special notice 
taken of him, for all were most respectful to each 
other. We had also with us the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, Mr. Robert Lowe, an active, firmly 
built old gentleman, with perfectly white hair and 
an animated ruddy countenance, in stature a little 
above the medium, and of a quick vigorous step in 
walking, ready to talk with anybody in his clear, 
definite way, with a hearty laugh for a good joke, 
and ready with one of his own, not always without 
a spice of satire. A part of his time he spent in 
the cabin studying figures. I noticed that he used 
spectacles, and yet held the book he was reading 



l3o A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

almost close to his nose. I was impressed with the 
conviction that he would not feel out of his element 
in the United States. 

Loch Linnhe is an arm of the sea which else- 
where would in the English tongue be called a 
bay ; not unlike the Cheaspeake. Other smaller 
Lochs set off from it into the deep recesses of the 
mountains to the east and west. One of those to 
the east is Loch Etive, which we have passed, and 
further up is Loch Leven. Between them lies the 
district of Appin, which at one time belonged to a 
sept of the clan Stewart. There the steep declivi- 
ties of the mountains come down to the shore in 
beautiful pastoral green. Our obliging captain 
sailed near in by the land as we passed Appin 
House, one of those handsome residences, which, 
occurring at great distances in what is otherwise 
wilderness, enhance the effect of the strong con- 
trasts in the natural scenery. 

The Stewarts of Appin were not the royal 
Stewarts ; but in looking upon what was once the 
residence of a powerful branch of that name, one 
cannot but think of the royal chief of the whole ; 
especially as the clan Appin were so devotedly 
attached to the cause of their royal kinsman, that 



CLAN S TE IV A RT OF A PPIN. i g j 

"In spite of the Campbells, their miglit and renown, 
And all the proud piles of Glenorchy and Lome, 
While one of the Stewarts held claim on the crown, 
His banner full boldly by Appin was borne." 

In the final effort to restore the dethroned dynasty 
by the rebellion of 1745, the Stewarts of Appin 
followed the standard of Charles Edward through 
all the campaign to the field of CuUoden, and to 
the ruin of their clan. However emphatically a 
Lowlander and Covenanter by blood must dissent 
from their politics, he feels constrained to respect 
such heroic, though mistaken fidelity, and looks 
with a degree of pathetic interest upon the country 
which was once their home : that 

" Land that was famous of yore, 
The land of green Appin, the ward of the flood, 
Where every grey cairn that broods o'er the shore 
Marks grave of the royal, the valiant or good : 
The land where the strains of grey Ossian were framed, 

The land of fair Selma, the reign of Fingal, 
And late of a race that with tears must be named, 
The noble clan Stewart, the bravest of all. 
Oh-hon, an Righ ! and the Stewarts of Appin ! 
The gallant, devoted old Stewarts of Appin. 
Their glory is o'er. 
For the clan is no more ; 
And the green grass waves over the heroes of Appin." 

These few days in the Highlands have brought 
back to memory my boyhood's enthusiastic read- 



t82 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

ing of Ossian, with a reviving sense of young life 
once more, although it seems strange to see as 
day-light realities what so long have been to me 
only visions of fancy. I spontaneously fell to 
thinking, more than I had thought since boyhood, 
of those unique productions, dreamy, half barbar- 
ous, often bombastic and yet often exceedingly 
beautiful, with occasional touches of tenderness 
that fall like glimpses of sunshine through the 
mist. Whatever may be said of their authorship, 
I perceive that they are the genuine offspring of 
this country. Every element of scenery proper to 
it is also proper to them : dark, rugged mountains, 
wild glens, heathery moors, romantic streams, 
arms of the sea winding inland in every direction, 
multitudes of islands, in some quarters clustered in 
groups, in others scattered far apart over the wide 
expanse of the ocean, a land where daily sunshine 
and cloud are mingled, and the landscape is often 
disguised and its objects magnified through the 
lenses of mist, a land, as it is to this day, of wil- 
derness and palaces. In perhaps only two things is 
it different now from what it is depicted in the 
poems ; the forests for the most part have disap- 
peared, and the style of the palaces has changed. 



POEMS OF OS SI AN. ig^ 

Instead of fortified strongholds of rapacious chiefs, 
comparatively poor and incomparably proud, they 
are now the elegant residences of wealth in the 
security of well-regulated peace. 

I had no copy of Ossian with me — in fact had 
no thought of him when I turned my steps in this 
direction ; but memory, though no doubt far from 
correct, served better than reading, for it brought 
with it feelings from a time of my own life better 
disposed to be charmed with Ossian than perhaps 
I should be now. As the poems had given 
my first ideas of the scenery, so now the actual 
scenery recalled the poems, their heroes and 
events — Ossian, the heroic but gentle and medi- 
tative son of Fingal, the "grey-haired King of 
Morven ;" " Ullin, the first of bards ;" and " Carril, 
of olden time," whose " music was like the memory 
of joys that are past." But chiefly arose upon my 
mind those graphic figures which depict the scen- 
ery — the *' hills of the isle of mist," " the mossy 
streams," " the gloomy heath, " the " streamy 
vales," "the troubled sea," the "fleets like forests 
clothed with mist," the "rugged mountains of 
Morven," the " bare and glittering rocks," the hero 
who sat " on the shore like a cloud of mist on the 



184 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

silent hill," whose voice in peace was " like the 
wind among the reeds," but in war like *' a wave 
on a rock," and who descended on his foes " like a 
stream from the mountains," and with all these 
the ghosts, which so often bent from the clouds, 
** the stars dim-twinkling through their forms." 

Essential to the completeness of poetry are 
metrical rhythm, concrete language, instead of 
abstract or technical, and impassioned thought. 
Of these, the Ossianic poems lack that which gives 
poetry its consistent form. True, they have a 
kind of rhythm, a tantalizing semi-metrical shape, 
which looks as if it were following some metrical 
original, but failing, often disappoints the ear. 
What appears to us as sometimes affected or 
bombastic, may be only the rendering of bold 
poetic imagery into the inadequate form of prose. 
The metrical form justifies a boldness, occasionally 
a pomp of expression, which prose rejects, or 
endures with a protest. 

At Ballahulish, on Loch Leven, we landed, and 
went up to Glencoe, interesting for its own savage 
grandeur ; for its river, said to be the Cona of 
Ossian ; and for the terrible massacre of its popu- 
lation, a sept of the clan Macdonald, about one 



GLENCOE. 185 

hundred and eighty years ago. The last has been 
touched by many a poet, but by none more feel- 
ingly than one bearing the name Campbell, on 
which rests the charee of the crime : 



fc>^ 



"They lay down to rest with their thoughts on the morrow, 
Nor dreamt that life's visions were melting like snow, 
But daylight has dawned in the silence of sorrow, 
And ne'er shall awaken the sons of Glencoe." 

From the point where Loch Leven sets off to 
the east. Loch Linnhe gives way to Loch Eil, 
which follows the same northeastward direction, 
and between the same mountainous embankments. 
Upon reaching its extremity, one looks forward 
over a low, dreary, flat moorland of at least ten 
miles in length, increasing a little in elevation as 
it recedes from the sea, and extending by an open- 
ing among the hills indefinitely. On its eastern 
side the mountains rise suddenly to a great alti- 
tude. For there is Ben Nevis, whose foot is on 
the flat, and his summit in the heavens, more than 
forty-four hundred feet, immediately above. This 
prince of Scottish mountains has all the advantage 
of exhibiting his whole elevation to the eye, and 
sometimes an additional advantage of concealing 
the real limit of his altitude in a crown of clouds. 



1 86 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

He also stands conspicuously apart from his fel- 
lows, separated by Glen Nevis on the south, and 
by plains on the west, north, and east. No moun- 
tain of its size can surpass Ben Nevis in majesty 
of appearance. 

From the western extremity of Loch Eil, a 
smaller bay strikes off at right angles into a glen 
running westward. At the entrance of that branch 
loch we were landed, on the northern side. The 
first object of human work to attract notice was the 
slender white monument erected to the memory of 
Colonel Cameron, of the 92d Highlanders. I had 
recently seen the place where he fell on the field of 
Waterloo, recalling the spirited stanza of Childe 
Harold touching his brave clan — 

"And high and wild the Cameron's gathering rose ! 

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills 
Have heard, and heard too have her Saxon foes : — 

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 

Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which tills 
Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers 

With the fierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years, 
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears." 

And here, where his forefathers maintained the 
cause of the Royal Stewart, to the sacrifice of their 
all, is his memory also honored who laid down his 
life in the service of the constitutional dynasty. 



THE CAMER ON CO UNTR V. 1 8 ^ 

And this is the Cameron country, made well- 
known in Highland history by the exploits of Sir 
Evan, whose military talents on a wider field would 
have earned him a European renown ; and the 
Lochiel of the more widely celebrated, but less for- 
tunate military enterprise of his grandson, as w^ell 
as the scene of Campbell's poem of " Lochiel's 
Warning," which has met with that extreme degree 
of popularity which makes it hackneyed. And this 
is the country where Charles Edward Stewart com- 
menced his campaign for the crow^n of his ances- 
tors. A wild adventure ; but from his point of 
view, believing that the people were generally in 
in his favor and would be glad to welcome him, it 
was entirely reasonable, and nothing in his eyes 
could be plainer than his right. He was the grand- 
son of King James H. of England. His father, who 
in 171 5 had failed in a similar attempt, had never 
resigned his claim, and was still living. In his 
name was this enterprise undertaken. It had much 
to recommend it to those who believed in the 
divine right of the old dynasty. Charles did not 
propose to conquer the throne of Great Britain for 
himself immediately, but to set up his father. Lack 
of force was the only objection in the minds of 



1 38 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

Jacobites. He had stolen away from France with 
only two ships, equipped for him by a few friends 
privately, and one of these he had lost in battle 
with a British man-of-war. In the other he had 
made his way round the west coast of Ireland to 
the Hebrides, without arms, without soldiers, with- 
out generals, and almost without money. The 
Highland chiefs were not glad to see him, and at 
first refused to adopt his cause. It seemed hope- 
less, if not chimerical. Considerable time was 
spent in soliciting one and another before a single 
clan was pledged to him. His first gain was 
effected by throwing himself upon the hospitality 
of the Macdonalds of clan Ronald and Glenalla- 
dale, and the reluctant chivalry of Lochiel. 

It was the decision of Lochiel, made at variance 
with his own better judgment, that settled the 
question for several clans. Such was the respect 
in which he was held, that when it was known that 
Donald Cameron of Lochiel had taken up the cause 
of the Prince, hundreds on hundreds hastened to 
his standard. The movement become an enthu- 
siasm among the Jacobite clans ; and, after the 
national fashion, music and poetry expressed and 
fanned the increasing flame. Among Lowlanders, 



RISING OF THE CIANS. l3g 

if not many risked their lives and fortunes for the 
cause, not a few sustained it with their pens, and 
added to the flood of song about it. After all was 
over, the romance of the adventure recommended 
it to the imagination, and gave rise to amateur 
poems on one side and the other, and Jacobite 
melodies became a style of popular song over all 
the kingdom. 

The landing place of the Pretender was on the 
estates of Clan Ronald, his flag was unfurled in 
Glenfinnan, and the most powerful arm in his sup- 
port was that of Lochiel. For the honor of the 
reigning dynasty, I was happy to learn that, 
although their estates were forfeited, the Cameron 
is Cameron of Lochiel still, and the lands of Mac- 
donald are still held by his heirs. It has even been 
allowed them to erect a monument where the 
rebel standard was set up. But the Disarming 
Act, which followed the suppression of the rebel- 
lion, with the laws against the Highland costumes, 
struck a fatal blow at clan organizations. They 
are broken and scattered ; and the practice of 
eviction of tenants in later times has sent a great 
part of the population to foreign lands. Still, 
though the clan system is broken, there abides 



iOO A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

among the remaining families a fondly cherished 
clan feeling, although it pertains now only to 
genealogy and history. That night I slept at the 
" Lochiel Arms Hotel," and awoke in the morning 
to look out upon the broad heathery plain, and the 
mighty mass of Ben Nevis soaring up between me 
and the rising sun. 

It would be endless to enumerate all the poetic 
associations of that country, from the mournful 
wail of " Lochaber no More," to the furious " Pibroch 
of Donuil Dhu," whose *'war pipe and pennon were 
at Inverlochy." I was there on the borders of 
Lochaber ; and before I left, I had walked over 
the plain to the foot of Ben Nevis, and by the 
wooded banks of the river Nevis, which winds along 
the glen of the same name, had rambled through 
the ruins of the old castle of Inverlochy, and 
traversed the battle ground where, in the fifteenth 
century, Donald Balloch of the Isles defeated the 
national forces, and where, two hundred years later, 
Montrose, in the interest of Charles I., defeated 
Argyll in defence of the Covenant. It was a scene 
related to national history, but perhaps still more 
interesting from its relations to two or three well- 
known chapters in Scott's ''Legend of Montrose." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GLENMORE-NAN-ALBIN— THE CALEDONIAN CANAL 
— CULLODEN — INVERNESS — MACBETH — M AC- 
PHERSON'S farewell — ''WHERE GADIE RINS." 

LENMORE-NAN-ALBW, the great 
glen of Scotland, is a deep channel 
through the mountains, running in a 
straight line and without interruption 
from one side of Scotland to the other, 
in a direction from south-west to 
north-east. For the greater part of 
its length it is filled with a row of three narrow 
lakes, in no part varying greatly from a mile to 
a mile and a half in width. With its lofty moun- 
tain banks on either side, it looks as if giants had 
undertaken to make a canal on their scale, from 
the Sound of Mull across the country to the 
Firth of Moray, and had executed all except the 




IQ2 A SUMMER RAMBLE LV SCOTLAND. 

sufficient deepening at three or four points. The 
working divisions which excavated Moray Firth 
and Loch Eil, finished their contract completely ; 
and so did those on the Loch Ness division. Two 
other sections, those of Loch Oich and Loch Lochy, 
came short of the necessary depth ; and the rest 
seem to have stopped working at an earlier 
stage. Perhaps they belonged to a trade's union 
and struck. The Caledonian Canal completes the 
part which they left unfinished, and, although not 
on the same Titanic scale, in a magnificent 
manner. 

Tiie Caledonian Canal was commenced in 1805 
and opened to navigation in 1822. Designed as a 
ship canal, it was constructed with a view to a 
minimum depth of twenty feet, with locks measur- 
ing one hundred and seventy feet in length, by 
forty feet wide. The embankments of the canal 
are solid stone masonry. . From sea to sea the 
length is sixty miles and a half. Of that distance 
the three lakes, Lochy, Oich and Ness, fill thirty- 
seven and a half miles, leaving twenty-three for 
the canal. The highest elevation which is in Loch 
Oich is overcome by nine locks. Handsome 
steamers ply upon this line for the accommodation 



THE CALEDONIAN CANAL, Iqo 

of travelers ; but otherwise I did not see such an 
amount of business upon it as might have been 
expected. 

Into that long- glen several side glens open, all 
of them connected with important historical clans. 
At the west end lies that of the Spean, containing 
the lands of Macdonald of Keppoch, and on the 
north side, that of Arkaig, with the residence of 
Cameron of Lochiel. Then, going north-eastward, 
follow Glengarry, formerly the possession of a sept 
of the Macdonalds, Glenmoriston and Glen Urqu- 
hart, belonging to the clan Grant. On the southern 
side, from west to east come successively, begin- 
ning from the country of Lochaber, that of the 
Frasers, of the Macgillivrays and of the Mackin- 
toshes. These clans were the strength of Charles 
Edward's army, and this is the region whence pro- 
ceeded the adventures of that romance in history, 
the rebellion of 1745. Among other fruits from 
this quarter, Scott drew some of the materials and 
characters of " Waverly." In the morning I left 
the neighborhood in which Charles Edward first 
mustered the clans, and before sunset, had looked 
upon CuUoden Moor, where, after having overrun 
the length of Scotland, and of England to its 

N 



IQ4 A SUMMER RAMBLfi IN SCOTLAND. 

centre, his last hope was extinguished in the utter 
rout of his army. The wail over that day, so 
dismal to the clans, which long echoed through 
both Highlands and Lowlands, had far tenderer 
than political and military aspects. It was like the 
lamentation of the Hebrew tribes over the defeat 
of their brother Benjamin. The muse of the Low- 
lands sympathized with her sister of the Highlands, 
and the loyal with Jacobites, in the terrible 
calamity of the field of battle, and still more in the 
military execution which followed. As " Drum- 
mossie Muir," or Culloden, it was sung in strains 
of sorrow by many who had no regret for the failure 
of Charles Edward. And when, at a later day, the 
heirs oi the chiefs concerned in the treason were 
restored to their confiscated estates, another burst 
of poetry hailed the resumption of their ancient 
honors. 

But here at Inverness, before I have passed the 
bounds of the country specially the scene of the 
" Forty-five " and its cycle of Jacobite melodies, I 
find myself entering upon another of still greater 
and far more general interest ; namely, that which 
Shakspeare has celebrated though he never saw. 
For here begins the original scenery of " Macbeth." 



INVERNESS. ip5 

It was at Inverness, according to Buchanan, that 
the murder of King Duncan was perpetrated. 
Although that is not without question, for three 
other places claim the dismal distinction, it is 
accepted by the poet, who, in the castle of Macbeth, 
at Inverness, has laid the central action of the 
drama. 

At this point the pleasant party thrown together 
on Loch Linnhe broke up and dispersed. I never 
saw but one of them again, and that for only a few 
minutes, without exchange of words. Pleasant, 
intelligent gentlemen they were, full of interest in 
the country of which they soon discovered that I 
was a resident and citizen. Most of them were 
English ; some of them of the University of 
Oxford. Of Englishmen, before leaving home, I 
had little knowledge except by reading or hearing, 
and expected to find them in various ways far from 
agreeable ; such is the reputation which for some 
reason or another their continental neighbors give 
them. On so brief a tour I had no time to see 
people in their homes, my aim being solely to look 
upon historic- scenes ; but from my experience 
among Englishmen, as far as it went, I am happy to 
say that I never fell in with them, in England or on 



ip6 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

their travels, in city or in country, among works of 
art, or climbing and scrambling among the Alps, 
or sailing on Scottish lochs, but I found them the 
most charming of companions. 

Going from Inverness eastward, one soon passes 
the parish of Cawder, one of the earldoms so 
mysterously assigned to Macbeth, and, at a few 
miles distance the castle of the present "Thane of 
Cawder," now under the English title of Earl. 

The next place we come to is Forres, where the 
scene of a great part of the action of " Macbeth " 
is laid ; and on the heath of Hardmoor, a barren 
tract of land towards the sea, did the witches hold 
their meeting. 

At Inverness the traveler coming from the 
West Highlands enters an entirely new style of 
country ; the wild mountains disappear, or appjcir 
only in the far distance ; and instead of the desola- 
tion out of which he has emerged, low lands under 
the highest scientific culture spread before him. 
Moorlands have been cleared, marshes and even 
lakes have been drained and turned into fruitful 
fields. On all the eastern coast, from Moray Firth 
to the English border, the farming is with little 
exception of a kind most gratifying to the eye of 
an agriculturist. 



MAC PHER SON'S FAREWELL. lO^ 

Swept along by rail through this land smiling 
under the hands of industry, where the fields are 
covered with the ripened grain, with men and 
women at work, reaping, binding and stooking the 
crops, one finds much to divide attention, and has 
time to think of only the most obvious and super- 
ficial associations of places and their names as they 
are called out, and after the pause of a moment are 
left behind. You hear the name of Elgin ; and one 
of Scotland's noblest sacred tunes comes to mind, 
and with it Burns's '* Cottar's Saturday Night." 
You cross the Spey which suggests Strathspey, a 
little further up, and that again a style of music 
peculiar to Scotland. And here is the little river 
Bogie, honored with both music and song enough 
for the portion of a bigger stream. Or you hear 
the junction for Banff, and if you have a little 
acquaintance with old Scottish music, you think of 
the musical outlaw Jemmy Macpherson, the fiddler 
and robber, to whom Scotland is indebted for two 
or three beautiful airs, and who carried the conso- 
lations of his art to the gallows with him, and 

" Played a spring and danced it round 
Beneath the gallows tree," 

then broke his violin across his knee and yielded 



Iq3 a summer ramble /at SCOTLAND. 

his neek to the halter. '* Macpherson's Farewell,'* 
composed by him in prison for his positively last 
appearance in pubHc, was a great favorite with 
Burns who also wrote a song for it. And there, on 
our right running down from Keith, we pass the 
little brook Gadie, which figures in the Latin poems 
of Arthur Johnstone, next after Buchanan, the 
best Latin poet of Scotland, but more familiarly in 
the plain Scotch of 

" I wish I were where Gadie rins, 
Where Gadie rins, where Gadie rins, 
I wish I were where Gadie rins, 
At the foot of Bennochie." 

Praise, like some other things, is unequally 
divided. While many large and majestic rivers 
roll unsung, what right has such a little streamlet 
as the Bogie or the Gadie to poetic honors } At 
many places I could have jumped across either of 
them, from bank to bank. 

There is intrinsic grandeur in lofty mountains, 
large rivers, extended plains, which call forth a 
response in the mind of man, and which he will go 
to much expense and trouble to enjoy ; but after 
all, nothing in heaven or earth is so interesting to 
him as his fellow man. A trace of a departed gene- 



MAN AND NATURE. 



199 



ration, be it only in a ruin, or scene of history or of 
fiction, will move warmer feeling than all the mag- 
nitude or beauty of uninhabited nature could ever 
reach. Science and commercial enterprise explore 
the mighty rivers of South America and Central 
Africa, but the affections of the heart cling, 
irrespective of their size or beauty, to the lower 
Nile, to the Jordan, and the Tiber ; and the little 
Ilissus is worth more to our inner life than is the 
Niger or the Amazon. Man is the life of the 
universe to man. 



CHAPTER XV. 

ABERDEEN— BEATTIE— SCENES OF BYRON'S CHILD- 
HOOD — MARISCHAL COLLEGE — OLD ABERDEEN 
— BARBOUR — JOHN OF FORDUN — KING'S COL- 
LEGE — HECTOR BOETIUS — JOHN BELLENDEN. 

^^ITERATURE, let us be thankful, does 
not depend upon commercial success, 
and often flourishes without it. The 
literary reputation of Aberdeen was 
most conspicuous in the days of her 
poverty. For then it overtopped 
everythmg else. Her colleges gave her eclat for 
learning, when learning enjoyed a larger propor- 
tion of public honor, and one of the greatest poets 
of the middle ages was her townsman. 

Aberdeen has also her folks' poetry. There 
grew up, nobody knows how, a class of ballads 
such as the " Battle of Harlaw," " The Trumpeter 




ABERDEEN. 



20 1 



of Fyfie," " The Baron of Brackley," and so on ; 
and all Scotland knows that 

"There's cauld kail in Aberdeen, 
And castocks in Strathbogie." 

And there was the home of the gentle " Minstrel," 
James Beattie, who, notwithstanding the merit of 
some of his prose, will live longest in his verse ; 
and but a short way behind, we might have visited, 
though I did not, the scene of " Christ's Kirk on 
the Green," a lively little poem by King James I. 

Some persons write and publish verses, who 
never knew the poet's fire ; and hence, though not 
very logically, it has been inferred that every one 
who is poetically gifted lays before the public his 
best ; that there is such a proclivity in all mankind 
to write verses, that real poetical talent cannot be 
concealed, and must inevitably manifest the utmost 
of its power. A man like Franklin was prudent in 
resisting the temptation to verse. Wherever it 
costs so little self-denial, it ought to be resisted. 
But there have been men, whom every right con- 
sideration, save the necessities of life, should have 
persuaded to the most faithful study of poetic art. 
In that light we readily think of Goldsmith. But 
is it not more strikingly true of Beattie ? a man 



202 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



who never did himself justice. A philosopher he 
certainly was not, and yet to philosophy, under a 
sense of duty, were his days devoted. His tempera- 
ment of mind was entirely that of a poet, and yet 
so little time was ever given to its culture that his 
early poems were mere crude incipiencies, which 
maturer study would have given to the flames. 
The man, who at leisure hours of an intellectually 
exhausting profession, could write "The Minstrel," 
might, with all his strength to it, have enriched 
the world with a really great poem. " The Min- 
strel " is composed with care, from beginning to 
end, and there are passages in it of masterly execu- 
tion, and yet through the whole, especially the first 
canto, one feels the caution of timidity, which is 
only occasionally broken over, a timidity not due 
to scanty resources, but to inexperience of wing. 
The freer sweep of expression in the second canto, 
notwithstanding its less attractive theme, distinctly 
evinces a progress in the author's skill, and com- 
mand of his art. That he truly '* reverenced the 
lyre," his own harmonious stanzas declare ; yet he 
never obtained emancipation from the notion, 
prevalent in his day, that it was fit only to be 
the plaything of a leisure hour. Perhaps, as in the 



ABERDEEN. 203 

case of some others, necessity of daily bread, and 
the business demands of prose prevailed. And so 
we have a feeble philosopher when we ought to 
have had none, and only a fragment of an imper- 
fectly developed, but true poet. 

On the north shore of the river Dee, and occupy- 
ing ground, which increases in elevation back from 
the harbor. New Aberdeen presents quite a stately 
appearance to the south. It was New Aberdeen 
five hundred years ago, being put up instead of an 
older town destroyed by Edward I., of England ; 
but within the present century has established an 
additional claim to the distinction of new. That 
part of it occupied by public business and the 
better class of private residences, has been entirely 
rebuilt. Constructed of the fine light-grey granite 
of the neighborhood, handsomely cut, its finer 
streets sustain their graceful architecture with an 
air of sober dignity. Union Street, King's Street, 
and the Place, in which stands the statue of the 
Duke of Gordon, may be compared with the finest 
municipal architecture in Europe. And yet, 
admiring as I did, that beauty in stone, I deferred 
more than a brief glance at it to a future occasion, 
and turned from Union Street into an old-fashioned 



204 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

thoroughfare called Broad — not very broad at its 
entrance, being contracted by the overbearing 
aggression of its more stylish neighbor. It widens 
up, however, as one advances. At a little bookstore 
I asked the way to Marischal College. The book- 
seller, a doiice-\ooV\x\^ elderly man, politely gave 
the information required. He then showed me an 
edition which he had just got out, of two old local 
ballads, obviously the most esteemed treasures in 
his literary world, and volunteered to direct me to 
a house, in the same street, which he said was the 
residence of Byron's mother, and of her son, for 
most of the first eight or nine years of his life. 

The house of the poet's childhood is not poetic 
either in itself or its surroundings. As when, in 
Geneva, I looked upon the house where it is said 
Rouseau was born and spent his childhood, it 
seemed to me that the glorious and sensitive life 
which there arose may have been clouded in its 
dawn by the sombreness of first impressions. 

Byron's mother was a native of this north 
country, a Gordon of a highly connected branch 
of the clan Gordon, an only child, and heiress of 
considerable fortune. Upon her marriage with 
Captain Byron, she removed with him to the 



SCENES OF BYRON'S CHILDHOOD. 205 

Continent, where he soon squandered all but a 
fragment of her property — a fragment fortunately 
so vested as to be out of his reach. She parted 
from him to return home. At London her son was 
born. In this plain, dingy old house in Aberdeen, 
the unfortunate lady took up her abode, and lived 
many years in circumstances which, if not poor, 
were extremely narrow. Three years after the 
birth of his son, Captain Byron died, and seven 
years later, his uncle, the fifth Lord Byron. The 
poet was thereby, at ten years of age, the successor 
to an English peerage ; and his residence in Scot- 
land came to an end. Most of the last two years 
had been spent in the country, at Ballater, a water- 
ing place about forty miles up the Dee. To his 
impressions of the scenery there, Byron recurred, in 
after days, with evident gratification. They appear 
in his boyish — yet no common boyish — song of 
" Loch-na-Gar," and that in which he fondly 
records the time when he 

" Roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath, 

And climbed thy steep summit, O Morven of snow, 
To gaze on the torrent that thundered heneatli, 
( ;r the mist of the tempest that gathered bolow." 

They are also recalled with lingering affection in a 
well-known passage of Don Juan : 



2o6 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

"As ' Auld Langsyne ' brings Scotland one and all, 

Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams, 
The Dee, the Don, Balgownie brig's l^lack wall, 
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams ; " 

where he also writes v/ith enthusiasm, 

" But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred 
A whole one, — and my heart flies to my head." 

Marischal College, in New Aberdeen, dates 
from the end of the sixteenth century. The build- 
ings have recently been renewed, and are good and 
substantial, but nobody can tell what they look 
like. For they are enclosed in a mass of private 
buildings, with only a narrow court in front, and 
that is approached by an insignificant entrance 
from Broad Street. Not in showy buildings, but 
in literary and historical relations lie the attrac- 
tions of Marischal College, the Alma Matej^ of 
the philosopher Thomas Reid, and the historian 
Gilbert Burnet, where the mathematicians, James 
Gregory and Colin Maclaurin taught, and where 
James Beattie was lecturing when he wrote " The 
Minstrel." 

Old Aberdeen is a straggling country town, 
quite apart, to the northward, from the busy city. 
The walk out to it I enjoyed under the feeling that 



OLD ABERDEElSr. 



207 



there I was treading the very ground trodden five 
hundred years ago by the author of " The Bruce." 
There was the original seat of the town, a place of 
note as early as the ninth century ; and not 
Kh^xdeen was its name, but Kh^xdon, as lying near 
the mouth of the river Don. The greater subse- 
quent prosperity of the new city, at the mouth of 
the Dee, has eclipsed both its importance and 
name. Still it retains, at least, the testimony of 
an adjective to its ancient precedence. For the 
people of Aberdeen, old and new, are Aberdonians 
to this day. 

From Marischal College, in the new town, to 
King's College, in the old, is over a mile. The 
latter is the older institution by a hundred years. 
But even that does not present perhaps its real 
antiquity. For although it was not formally estab- 
lished with college authority until 1494, when, 
through the efforts of Bishop Elphinstone, it 
received pontifical sanction from Pope Alexander 
VI.— a scandalous kind of god-father — yet there 
had been a collegiate school in that place at least 
from the reign of Malcom IV., in the twelfth 
century, and there, in the fourteenth, must John 
Barbour have received the education which pre- 



2o8 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

pared him to be Archdeacon, for it does not 
appear that he ever left his native land, until in 
the capacity of Archdeacon he took his journey 
into England. 

What Thomas of Erceldoune is to the south of 
Scotland, but with more historical certainty, as to 
his work, is Barbour to the north. He is its literary 
link with the middle ages, one of those leaders of 
thought by whom our English tongue was trained 
to the harmony of letters. While Langlande, and 
Chaucer, and Gower were at work in England, 
Barbour was similarly employed up here. The 
same language, it appears, was spoken from Kent 
to Murray Firth, with less dialectical difference 
than at a later time, for it is obvious that the 
language in which Barbour wrote was his verna- 
cular. 

** The Bruce " is an historical poem or metrical 
history of *' The Acts and Life of that most 
victorious conqueror, Robert Bruce, King of Scot- 
land, wherein are contained the martial deeds of 
those valiant princes, Edward Bruce, Sir James 
Douglas, Erie Thomas Randel, Walter Stewart, 
and sundrie others." As a poem, it is even com- 
pared with the works of Chaucer, one of the great- 



BARBOUR AND CHAUCER. 209 

est in our language, as pertaining to that early 
time. In subject and design it is not of a nature 
to be compared with anything that Chaucer ever 
wrote ; nor would it be just to the father of English 
poetry to compare him, in those respects, with it. 
Its proper relations are with the metrical romances 
and chronicles of the foregoing period. And there 
it rises to the vast superiority of truth. The former 
it excels in the reality of its characters and scenes, 
and, although not without some ingredients of 
fiction, in historical fact ; and the latter, in the rich 
life of a masculine poetry. It is also more native, 
owes less to foreign — that is Italian — example than 
do the works of Chaucer. By this remark I mean 
not to put Barbour above Chaucer, nor even equal 
to him, upon the whole, but simply to claim for the 
northern poet a place of his own — a place which 
not the greatest of his time can dispute with him. 

Without that thinking which is occasioned by 
being on the spot, I should perhaps never have 
recognized the honor due to this poor Old Aber- 
deen, for priority in another branch of literature. 
But thinking about the historical character of 
"The Bruce," on the ground where it was written, 
unavoidably suggests the fact that here also was 

O 



2IO A SUMMER I^ AMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

the birth of Scottish histoiy. John of Fordun was 
a monk of Aberdeen, and of the fourteenth century, 
a friend, I have no doubt, of Barbour. The authors 
of the "Scottish Chronicle" and of the historical 
poem, living in the same place, of about the same 
age, and monks in the same Abbey, could not fail 
to be mutually attached companions. They are 
such just now in my mind. I see them, on a 
pleasant autumn afternoon like this, their morning 
tasks accomplished, with their long gowns girded 
up, striding along together over these low hills 
which overlook the Don, in absorbing discussion of 
their favorite and kindred topics. At any rate the 
scenery before me speaks of the poet ; the old 
Abbey is younger than his day, but it is the growth 
of that in which he worshipped. And the narrative 
of Fordun, while the foundation of all subsequent 
Scottish history, has furnished matter and sugges- 
tion for many a poetical tale. 

Barbour's work pertained to the generation just 
preceding his own — he was himself born before his 
hero died — whereas Fordun drew his material from 
long by-gone centuries. Indeed he begins his 
work with the creation of the world. And why 
not "^ That event was indispensable to Scotland. 



KING'S COLLEGE. 



211 



Independent little country as it is, we must admit 
that it would not have been just what it is, but for 
the way in which the world was made. There are 
some parts of it not easy to account for on any 
theory which would develop it out of the wants of 
its people. The work of creation was not such a 
long story to tell in those days as it is now, other- 
wise the learned monk would not have carried his 
chronicle as far as he did, to the middle of the twelfth 
century, with material enough collected to finish it 
until within a year of his own death. It is worthy 
of remark that the father of Scottish history is 
more careful of fact, or at least less mythical than 
his successors for three hundred years. In reculti- 
vating the ancient part of his field, their improve- 
ments and additions are of the kind most perversely 
called embelishment, as if truth were ugly and false- 
hood beautiful. Fordun died in or soon after 1386, 
Barbour, at an advanced age, ten years later. 

At King's College not much, if anything, 
remains of the original structure. Improvement 
has b.een at work, no doubt, greatly to the advan- 
tage of all most intimately concerned. It is a small 
affair that a passing tourist should be gratified with 
looking upon the room where Boetius lectured, or 



212 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

the cell where he lodged, as compared with the 
better accommodation of those who have to 
execute their life's labor there. Those who enjoy 
history ought to give place to those who are 
making it. Entering entirely without ceremony, I 
found the librarian busy arranging things in a 
handsome new library building, well satisfied with 
the changes going forward, and expressing no wish 
but to have them go faster. 

The situation of the College is low, but has the 
great advantage over Marischal in being upon open 
ground, apart from other houses, and enlivened by 
the sight of lawn and trees. Its first president, 
after it was christened a College, was Hector 
Boece, (Latine, Boetius,) who had himself received 
at Aberdeen that education by which he was pre- 
pared to enter the University of Paris. Boece was 
one of the more successful of those authois, who in 
the sixteenth century, on the basis of Fordun's 
work, occupied themselves with the historical 
affiiirs of Scotland. John Major, of St. Andrews, 
had the priority by a few years, in publication. 
But his work was inelegant in style, and though 
less credulous, not more reliable than the rest. 
That of Buchanan excelled all rivalry in the merits 



HECTOR BOETIUS. 213 

of Latin diction and literary form, but was not 
written until late in the century. Hector Boece 
issued his in 1526, five years after the appearance 
of Major's. It immediately took a high place in 
the esteem of scholars, and was, by order of King 
James v., translated into English. Unhappily, the 
translation was made without fidelity, and in such 
archaic style as very soon to become obsolete. 
True, it is an old book, the oldest existing book of 
English prose produced in Scotland ; but the date 
of its publication, 1536, makes it younger than any 
of the poems of Henryson, Dunbar and Douglas, 
which, as compared with it, present little difficulty 
to the ordinary reader, even now. 

John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Murray, author 
of that translation, unfortunately used, a local 
dialect, while the poets, with better judgment, 
wrote in that which already enjoyed some culture 
of letters. The smoothing out of Bellenden's 
crooked English by Harrison, as it appears in 
Hollinshed, still further disguised the work of 
Boece. 

After all her achievements in scholarship and 
prose, the most justifiable ground of pride to Aber- 
deen, in those days, was her poet. Nor are her 



214 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

poetic honors to be all referred to generations 
past. The succession has been continued, through 
names of greater or less renown, to the present 
hour. George Macdonald is the heir of a long and 
highly honored line. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HOWE OF THE MEARNS — LOCHLEE — ALEXANDE-R 
ROSS — STRATHMORE — MONTROSE— THE GREAT 
MARQUIS — HIS HIGHLAND CAMRAIGN — AS A 
POET — PERTH — KING JAMES I. — SCOTTISH 
POETS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY — DUNDEE 
— McCHEYNE — RELIGIOUS REVIVAL. 

OUTH of Aberdeen our way takes us 
round the declivities by which the 
Grampians stoop down to the sea. 
Those celebrated ramparts of ancient 
Caledonian independence increase in 
magnitude as they slope away off in 
the distance to the south-west, leaving a belt of 
irregular lowlands between them and the coast. 
This " Howe of the Mearns," as it lies before me, 
rich, well-cultivated land, forms a striking contrast 
with yonder wild mountains, far in the west, among 
which soar up the dim summits of Battoch and the 
"Dark Loch-na-Gar." 




2i6 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Among the books occupying the window sole 
of a rustic friend of my boyhood, there was an old- 
fashioned poem, called Helenora ; or, the Fortu- 
nate Shepherdess, by Alexander Ross, of Lochlee, 
which I used to read with a delightful dreamy kind 
of pleasure. Of the actual bodily existence of 
Alexander Ross I hardly conceived, and where 
Lochlee was I no more thought of inquiring than 
after the geography of the Arabian Nights. Story 
and place and author were all alike to me, creatures 
of imagination. It would have been a diminution 
of my pleasure to have found out that any of them 
was an earthly reality. Another copy of that 
poem I never saw, and have not seen it since those 
early days. Other reading subsequently dislodged 
it from its place of honor in my mind, but by many 
little tendrils it has to this hour kept its hold upon 
my memory. In travelling down from Aberdeen 
into the Howe of the Mearns, and looking up the 
names of places by the way, it was with a half 
revival of the boyish delight that I recognized the 
geographical reality of Lochlee. Although I could 
not visit the place, its vicinity recalled what I had 
read somewhere about it and its poet school- 
master. 



LOCHLEE. 217 

Lochlee is a wild Highland parish among the 
Grampians of Forfarshire. Near the middle of it 
is a little loch, about a mile and a quarter long, 
formed in the course of the River Lee. Upon its 
eastern shore arc the ruins of the former church 
and schoolhouse of the parish ; the latter having 
also been the dwelling house of the schoolmaster. 
It was of diminutive proportions, consisting of only 
two apartments, the largest of which was not over 
ten feet square. Yet there, about one hundred 
and fifty years ago, Alexander Ross, in humble 
contentment, raised his family, taught the children 
of the Glen, wrote his poems and songs, and 
enjoyed his meed of local fame. In favorable 
weather his study was a walk beneath the trees 
in the adjoining churchyard. The author from 
whom I quote, in this imperfect memoritcr way, 
remarks upon his visit to the place, that there was 
a wildness of desolation, and yet a holy calmness 
of repose about it, under which he felt that if his 
own bones should become objects of interest, he 
would rather have them laid in the solitude of 
Glenlee, where they would be visited only by the 
casual traveller amid the wild simplicity of Nature, 
than huddled away under the pavement of St. 
Paul's or Westminster. 



2i8 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Agricultural districts are generally unpoetical 
places, where men think little of aught beyond 
work and pay, food, clothing and comfort. Such, 
at least, is the common idea. But as I look 
towards that fine rich country before me to the 
south, the Strathmore of Scotland, extending, as I 
know, with little interruption, through the heart 
of the country, to the Firth of Clyde, the very 
opposite conviction takes hold of my mind. The 
mountains, wilds and pastures are pleasing themes; 
but as an original mountaineer, I am afraid that 
the plains excel us in intellectual as well as other 
products. Not to speak of Dr. Arbuthnot, Robert 
Barclay, or Lord Monboddo, whose condition in 
life would have furnished them literary facilities 
anywhere in the land, we are here entering upon 
the region of Michael Bruce, John and Alexander 
Bethune, William Thom, and Robert Nicol, pea- 
sant poets, upon whom the conditions of the soil 
made heavy demands, and all of whom perished 
early, most of them under the effects of poverty, 
toil and suffering ; but who all have left true 
poetry, although pressed out of crushed hopes or 
breaking hearts. 

From the brevity of the time at my command 



KING JOHN BALTOL. 219 

it was necessary to foreg-o some things of real 
interest in order to secure others possessed of 
greater ; and not unfrequently the choice of omis- 
sion was afterwards regretted. Such was the case 
when, after having passed Montrose, I reflected 
upon some of the historical events, for the sake of 
which I should have been glad to see it. There 
was the scene of King John Baliol's humiliation to 
Edward I. of England, as recorded by Andrew 
Wynton. 

" This John the Baliol, on purpos 
He tuk and browcht hym til Munros, 
And in the castell of that town, 
That then was famous in renown, 
This John the Baliol dyspoyled he 
Of all his robys of ryaltie. 
The pelure tuk off his tabart, 
Tume tabart he was callyt aftyrwart." 

From Montrose also, Froisart says : Lord James 
Douglas set sail to carry the heart of his sovereign 
to the Holy Land. And in Montrose was the 
residence of the illustrious reformer John Erskine, 
of Dunn, the companion of Knox, and under the 
new establishment, ecclesiastical superintendent 
of Angus and Mearns. Nor could one fail to thin]^ 
of its brilliant Marquis in the days of the Cove- 
nant, who has been so much lauded and so much 



220 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



blamed, and so much misrepresented on both sides, 
and whose death did more dishonor to the Cove- 
nanter government than all the defeats he had 
inflicted on their armies. Although one of Sir 
Walter Scott's heroes, his real claim to the repu- 
tation he enjoys is not, I think, generally well 
understood. 

James Graham, Earl, and subsequently Marquis 
of Montrose, was born in that city. At the signing 
of the National Covenant in Edinburgh, he was 
twenty-six years of age, and entered into that 
solemn bond with unfeigned zeal. Employed by 
Parliament as one of the officers to carry it into 
the different cities of the kingdom for their signa- 
ture, he deported himself as a consistent Cove- 
nanter. Parliament appointed him to high office 
in the army. But as the controversy advanced 
between the two Parliaments and their king, the 
young nobleman began to sympathize with the 
king, thinking him too harshly treated, and that 
the Parliaments demanded too much. Finally the 
appearance of war, in which the Parliaments were 
arrayed against their king, as a hostile power, so 
contradicted all his convictions that he felt con- 
strained to protest, in the name of loyalty, against 



MONTROSE. 



221 



the party, which, in the name of rehgion, he had 
chosen. Detected in secret correspondence with 
the king, he was arrested and thrown into prison, but 
soon afterwards Hberated. He then openly joined 
the king, whose case was becoming desperate. 

The battle of Marston Moor was lost to the 
royalists by the junction of the Scottish with the 
English Parliamentary^ armies. To repair tliat 
disaster, Montrose asked and received commission 
to go into Scotland and raise "such a commotion" 
there as should compel the Scottish Parliament to 
recal their forces from England. With the promise 
of a few hundred soldiers from Ireland, he found 
his way, under disguise, into the north of Scot- 
land, where he trusted that some royalists would 
join him. Not many did. But with a small army 
he rushed into action. His victory at Tippermuir 
beo^an a career of success the most brilliant which 
occurred on the royalist side during the whole 
war. With a small and unreliable force, picked 
up as best he could, and maintained by plunder, 
he rushed from one victory to another until he had 
defeated the Parliamentary armies in the north, 
and before twelve months had elapsed was south 
of the Forth, on his way to the Border, and a 



222 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

detachment of the Scottish army was actually 
withdrawn from England to encounter him. His 
promise to the king had been well kept ; his part 
of the service accomplished. But unfortunately 
for his master the battle of Naseby had been 
fought meanwhile. And when General Lesley 
returned into Scotland, he left no royal force 
behind him that could take advantage of his 
absence. Montrose's hastily levied Highlanders 
were no match for his well trained cavalry ; and 
when defeated at Philiphaugh, they scattered never 
to rally. Further struggle was hopeless. Mon- 
trose escaped to the continent, where he resided 
the next five years. 

After the death of the king, he took up the 
cause of Charles H., and attempted to carry him 
by force to the throne of Scotland, without regard 
to the Covenant, and of course unconstitutionally, 
as things then stood. Utterly failing in that 
enterprise, he was taken prisoner, tried on a 
charge of treason, and executed. The penalty he 
had incurred ; but the manner of execution was 
barbarous. His adversaries prejudiced their cause 
by the vindictive spirit in which they defended it. 

It is well known that the celebrated military 



MONTROSE AS A POET. 223 

leader possessed also the gift of poetry. The 
verses composed the night before his execution 
are historical ; also, those which he wrote after 
hearing of the king's death. In an old delapidated 
odd volume, having neither beginning nor end, 
which I picked up at a second-hand book stall, I 
find a song ascribed to him, which seems to bear 
internal marks of being genuine. It has the direct- 
ness, earnestness, rapidity and power, which might 
be expected of Montrose ; and in purity does no 
discredit to his original Covenanter profession. 

"My dear and only love, I pray, 

This little world of thee, 
Be governed by no other sway 

But purest monarchie : 
For if confusion have a part, 

Which virtuous souls abhor, 
I'll call a synod in my heart. 

And never love thee more. 

As Alexander I will reign. 

And I will reign alone, 
My thoughts did ever more disdain 

A rival on my throne. 
He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
Who dares not put it to the touch, 

To gain or lose it all. 

But I must rule and govern still, 

And always give the law ; 
And have each subject at my will, 

And all to stand in awe ; 



224 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

But 'gainst my batteries if I find. 

Thou storm or vex me sore, 
Or if thou set'st me as a blind, 

I'll never love thee more. 

Or in the empire of thy heart, 

Where I should solely be. 
Another do pretend a part, 

And dare to vie with me ; 
Oi- if committees thou erect, 

And go on such a score, 
I'll smiling mock at thy neglect, 

And never love thee more. 

But if no faithless action stain 

Thy love and constant word, 
I'll make thee famous by my pen, 

And glorious by my sword. 
I'll serve thee in such noble ways 

As ne'er was known before ; 
I'll crown and deck thy head with bays 

And love thee more and more." 

What the world thinks of that song I do not 
know ; but to me it gives evidence that the great 
soldier had it in him to be a great poet, had cir- 
cumstances turned his studies in that direction. 
That he was a great soldier only the smallness 
of his army can put in question. No other head in 
the king's service could have done what he did. 
In point of strategy there was nothing equal to it, 
on either side, in all that war. 

What is ordinarily known about the poets oi 



PERTH. 225 

Scotland had long been familiar to me, but it 
had not occurred to group them according to 
localities ; in travelling over the country, the pres- 
ence of certain localities did that work for me. 
The effect was sometimes that of gratified surprise. 
Such was the case when I came into the neighbor- 
hood of Perth, and the country lying between that 
and the Firth of Forth. That district had never 
presented itself as particularly poetic. But when 
I looked upon it, quite a number of the best known 
names arranged themselves together in relation to 
it. Here it was, in the vicinity of Perth, that King 
James I. was residing when murderers entered his 
apartments and slew him. In the Abbey of Loch 
Leven, in the same early years of the fifteenth 
century, lived Andrew Wyntoun. One hundred 
years later Gavin Douglas was Bishop of Dunkeld, 
and Inglis, Lindsay and Buchanan resided in and 
near St. Andrews, and King James V. died in 
Falkland. 

The literary achievements of a Prince do not 
ordinarily fail of their full measure of applause, but 
those of King James L have never received it from 
the popular voice. Nor have his merits as a ruler 
been recognized, as they deserve, by the common- 

p 



226 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

ality of Scotland. So far before his age as to be 
unappreciated for what he was, he suffered as good 
men are Hable to suffer, who fall on evil times. 
The fourteenth century was a period of advance ; 
the fifteenth, of retrogression, at least for its first 
half In most countries of Europe it was a time of 
furious conflict between the monarchy and the 
baronial Princes, amounting to civil wars, which 
greatly interfered with the progress of popular 
instruction. In Scotland it was the time when the 
Highland Chieftains and the Lowland Lords had 
attained their highest power, and were making 
their most exorbitant demands. King James's 
semi-barbarous nobility saw in the wise ruler, the 
prudent legislator, and accomplished poet, only an 
obstacle in the way of their own rapacity. And 
the people who ought to have upheld the honor of 
his name, who did more than any other to liberate 
them from the irregular despotism of local tyrants, 
by the institution of a national system of law, have 
allowed it to lie under the comparative obscurity 
to which their ruder and more ignorant forefathers 
consigned it. Not that he has been overlooked by 
history, or by the learned in Scottish antiquity, 
but certainly among the public in general, the 



KING JAMES I. 227 

author of ** The King's Quair," the reformer of the 
Scottish Monarchy, the first to estabhsh a govern- 
ment of law over all Scotland, the first, and one of 
the very few monarchs of his country to go among 
the people familiarly, to learn of their wants, is 
known to only few as anything more than the first 
in a long line of Jameses, and by fewer as an 
unfortunate prince, who wrote a poem in a very 
obscure age, whose life began with a long imprison- 
ment, and ended by assassination. But why should 
not the first James be as well known and as dear 
to the public as the first Robert, or the hero of 
Ellerslie ? His work was different, but not less 
vital to the integrity of the nation. 

**The King's Ouair," a beautiful poem, of manly 
and tender feeling, partaking in no degree of the 
rudeness of the age, and equally free from the 
weakness of sentimentalism, was written in the 
purest English. Of this in itself a sufficient expla- 
nation might be found in the author's long captivity 
in England. But it is only an element in a general 
fact, that during the whole of the fifteenth century 
the best English was written in Scotland. That 
the greatest poets of the language then were 
Scotsmen is another element of the same fact. 



228 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

James I., Robert Henryson, "William Dunbar, and 
Gavin Douglas had no equals in either respect 
among their contemporaries south of the Tweed. 

Dundee, Doniim Dei, God's Gift, so called, it is 
said, from the church and tower erected there, 
about the middle of the twelfth century, by David, 
Earl of Huntingdon, for his marvelous escape 
from shipwreck, on returning from a crusade, 
has many things to be proud of; a beautiful 
situation, a fine harbor, large and commodious 
docks, extensive commerce, prosperous manufac- 
tures, and the eminent place it has occupied in 
the history of the country. But my thoughts 
about it, I must confess, dwelt less upon its 
antiquity than upon its recent history, and 
less upon its great things than upon some of 
its good men. This is the city, where, under 
the direction of James Halliburton, the Reformed 
worship was first publicly set up in Scotland. And 
here, in later days, the pious McCheyne preached 
and prayed, and sent forth the light of a godly life 
over the world. To think of him was to think also 
of his like-minded friends, Bonar of Collace ; John 
Milne of Perth ; Macdonald of Blairgowrie ; Wil- 
liam Burns, and others, and I immediately felt 



RELIGIOUS REVIVAL, 229 

that I was on consecrated ground A spiritual 
debt, never to be repaid to them, is due to those 
young men, whose pious zeal created that well 
balanced revival of religion which pervaded the 
churches so widely, without disturbing them, and 
carried its gentle, but cogent persuasives beyond 
the Atlantic. To the ministerial revival of ortho- 
dox preaching and pastoral earnestness, brought 
about by Chalmers and his colleagues, this was a 
consistent sequel in popular piety and devotion. 
It was not, like many others, a mere excitement 
of feeling, but consisted primarily in scriptural 
instruction and learning ; it had no doctrinal novel- 
ties, but taught closely the orthodoxy of the church; 
and it employed no artificial methods, but relied 
solely on an earnest use of scriptural means and 
the promised efficacy of the Holy Spirit. 

Many, I am aware, deemed that zeal for reli- 
gion inordinate and sickly. It evinced its health 
by vigorous living, and its reasonableness by the 
good it did — the virtue of those whose characters 
it pervaded, and the happiness it conferred. How 
it is estimated now, in this part of Scotland, where 
it rose, I know not ; but for the churches in the 
British Isles, as well as in that land beyond the 



230 • ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

main, now most dear to me, there is nothing I 
more earnestly desire than the rise of another such 
band of young men as those who prayed and 
labored on this north shore of the Tay some thirty 
years ago. 

It is a singular historical contrast that, in the 
very residence of John Graham, of Claverhouse, in 
the very city which gave title to his highest honors, 
earned by relentless persecution for religion's sake, 
that same religion should see one of the purest 
and happiest of her spiritual triumphs. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ST. ANDREWS — HER UNIVERSITY — KNOX — 
BUCHANAN — SIR DAVID LINDSAY — POETRY 
AND THE REFORMATION — ST. ANDREWS IN 
THE REFORMATION — DINGIN' DOUN OF THE 
CATHEDRAL — ART AND RELIGION. 

ROM Leuchars, on the way from 
Dundee to Edinburgh, a branch road 
leads down the coast to St. Andrews. 
The intervening country is flat, and 
through it creeps the Eden, by a 
broad estuary to the sea. On the 
west are hills, in many places covered 
with trees and honored with historic residences. 
To the south the plain is bounded by a low ridge, 
running out from the hills into the sea, and on 
that ridge, where it forms a cape or promontory, 
extends the city of St. Andrews, to whose mass 
of houses it owes most of its apparent elevation. 




232 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

A venerable, conspicuous, yet hermit-looking 
place it is, this old University town, connected with 
which are many historic and literary associations. 

Apart from the tumult of commerce and manu- 
factures, as if it had no relations to them, or to the 
men concerned in them, it has most profoundly 
affected all. How much of what makes Scotsmen 
what they are is due to St. Andrews ; how much 
of their enterprise, their energy, their self-reliance, 
their popular education, and their freedom of wor- 
ship and of life ! With astonishment I look upon 
this little quiet city, when I think of the great and 
far-pervading agencies which have originated 
within its walls, the men whom it has prepared 
for their work, and the events by them created. 

**It is an old fogy, that head," say the hands. 
It does nothing but think. Look at us. We are 
the workers. We have done everything that ever 
has been done. What ship did the head ever 
build .^ What railroad did it ever execute } *'It is 
we who find out and do." And so exclaim the 
feet. "That lazy thing, the heart, never goes out 
of its nest. We do all the commerce of the world, 
trudging and plunging through thick and thin, 
from continent to continent, and keep things mov- 



ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY. 233 

ing." Ah, where would be movement without a 
motive power ? And the best constructed watch 
would only run to its ow^n ruin w^ithout a regulator. 
Indispensable as are hands and feet, and good 
digestion, the most useful thing in this world, after 
all, is a good idea. And little St. Andrews has 
been fruitful in ideas. Pier University, the oldest 
in Scotland, antedates that of Aberdeen by more 
than two generations. It w^as set on foot in 141 1, 
the year of the battle of Harlaw ; and the three 
Colleges, into which it divided, were St. Salvator's, 
founded in 1458; St. Leonard's, in 1532; and St. 
Mary's, in 1552. The former two are now united 
on the ground of St. Salvator's ; and the buildings 
of St. Leonard's, in as far as they are not ruins, 
have been converted into private residences ; while 
St. Mary's College is now exclusively a theological 
seminary. It is also called New College. Of the 
former two the old names are sunk under that 
of the United College. A still newer institution, 
the Madras College, which corresponds better to 
what in America is called a High School, was 
founded in 1833, and has proved eminently suc- 
cessful. 

In St. Andrews there are two names, which 



234 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

precede all others in association with letters. 
These are Knox and Buchanan ; both reformers in 
cheir respective ways, but the former a ruler and 
!:he latter a poet. Though ruling, certainly, is the 
greatest work among men, and does most to form 
and pepetuate a reputation, yet poetic work, when 
well done, a part, and that the best part of the 
public will not fail to honor. And George Buchanan 
was, beyond dispute, the best Latin poet of the 
Reformation. His work, entirely in the field of 
letters and education, was not so controling as 
that of Knox, but quite as important to be done. 
By his writings he largely influenced the Latin- 
reading public, which was then numerous, and did 
the best thinking for the world. It has since 
diminished, until in our generation it can hardly 
be said to have an existence. 

But the Reformation had its popular poet also, 
who was quite as well known to the people of Scot- 
land and its fashionable circles as Buchanan to the 
learned. The Knight of the gentle science of 
Heraldry, its Lion King-at-arms, Sir David Lind- 
say, was also a resident of this old kingdom of Fife, 
and a graduate of St. Andrews. He preceded 
Buchanan ; and although an official at court, and 



POE TR V AND THE RE FOR MA TION. 235 

a favorite, where the CathoHc religion was still 
professed, was a real precursor of the Reformation. 
His poems carried its way of thinking to many 
who had no taste for the hard arguments of the 
theologians. 

Poetry arrayed herself on the side of the Reform- 
ation from the first ; was, in fact, a pioneer of the 
cause. As Langlande and Chaucer supported 
Wycliff and preceded him, and the poems of 
Michael Angelo, and of Vittoria Colonna breathed 
the spirit of the feebler and short-lived movement 
of reform in Italy, so Lindsay and Buchanan were 
fellow laborers with Knox. It was only at a later 
time, and by a party, though a ruling party in the 
Scottish church, that poetry was discountenanced. 
A party it was consisting of men who in all other 
respects merit the very highest veneration. In 
the first instance it may have been due to a stern 
n-ecessity. They felt themselves in the midst of a 
life-and-death conflict for "freedom to worship 
God." The crush and struggle of battle was no 
time to study the music of the band. True enough 
for those who were under arms. But there were 
some not engaged in either charge or defense, who 
having power to warm valor for a new conflict 



236 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND, 

need not have been discouraged from occupying 
their proper talent. And after all, though Truth 
and Right must be defended with the sharpest 
weapons and the bravest arms at command, when- 
ever an attack is made, the proper work of the 
church is not fighting, in that sense ; but holding 
up and recommending the gospel in all its beauti- 
ful attractions before the world. And it was not 
during the resistance of oppression that the sepa- 
ration between religion and poetry was most con- 
spicuous. On this point some of the best of my 
countrymen made a sad mistake. Leaders of 
thought in a nation, which its history proclaims 
to be eminently imbued with poetic sentiment, 
they did what in them lay to chill that spirit out. 
Accordingly, in the service of the church, it was 
like an arm tied up and unemployed. It became 
withered and feeble. The church had to put up 
with the most mechanical kind of psalmody, and 
that chiefly borrowed. Few poems were produced 
to warm the heart to God and his service. "The 
Grave " was a solemn theme, and could not, in 
itself, give the offence of levity, and yet it was 
thought well to plead for that masterly work by a 
rough hand, that it was written before its author's 



POE TRY AND THE RE FORMA TION. 2 3 7 

ordination. Erskine's Gospel Sonnets were a com- 
promise, in which the party of the sonnet side 
suffered badly. 

And when the national tendency broke over 
the imprudent embankment it was naturally in a 
rollicking- reaction against religion. The poetry 
of the Reformation was tinged with hereditary 
blemishes ; but in its aim was right, elevated and 
religious. That which followed, in the freedom 
of the national church, was in psalmody poor and 
scanty in the extreme ; in popular songs abund- 
ant, but entirely disconnected with religion, and 
often profane and vulgar. Popular poetry, indis- 
criminately under disfavor of religion, slipped away 
entirely from her control. Allan Ramsay's influ- 
ence was for good ; his songs, as far as they went, 
took the place of worse, but he writes as a man 
might who has never heard about religion. I know 
nothing of literary kind for which a Scotsman has 
such reason to blush as for a numerous class of 
songs which were commonly sung among his 
countrymen in the eighteenth century. Burns 
was not over nice, at times, but the nation owes 
him a debt of gratitude unspeakable in rescuing 
her beautiful tunes from those degrading alliances. 



238 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

And if not for equal power, certainly for purifica- 
tion, still more is due to Tannahill, Allan Cun- 
ningham, Henry Riddell and others, who have 
vindicated the place of song in a Christian civiliza- 
tion ; among whom I hold that the highest place 
is due to the Baroness Caroline Nairne. 

In the line of hymnology, with exception of a 
few pieces by Logan and one or two others, the 
Church of Scotland was woefully defective, until 
within the present generation. And even now, I 
am afraid that Dr. Bonar receives less encourage- 
ment from his own church than from some in a 
foreign land, and from general Christian society. 
The churches of Scotland have overlooked a part 
of their duty, as having spiritual charge of a 
people singularly open to poetical influences. 

It is a one-sided, and therefore wrong view 
of human nature, which looks upon any of its 
essential elements as sinful. The imagination is 
in itself as holy as the reason ; the sense as worthy 
of reverence as the intuitions of the mind, and the 
right culture of the one as necessary to the com- 
pleteness of man as that of the other. If reason 
must guide the helm in the voyage of life, the 
buoyant impulse of emotion must fill the sails. A 



ST. ANDREWS IN THE REFORMATION 239 

man who steers himself solely by the calculations 
of a clear cold head is quite as likely to sin as he 
who follows the impulse of a warm heart ; his sin 
will be of a different kind, but perhaps less par- 
donable. Neither head nor heart alone is enough; 
a complete man is fitted out with both, and reaches 
his completeness only in the Christian culture of 
all the capacities of both. 

In St. Andrews, under Romish rule, the Primacy 
of all Scotland had its seat ; and here the Reforma- 
tion began. Out from the Univertity of St. 
Andrews proceded all the first leaders in that 
great religious revolution. Students together 
under the same masters, almost in the same year, 
were those men, who, through toil and suffering, 
and in some cases death, effected the emancipation 
of their country from the bondage of Rome. I 
stood upon the ground where Patrick Hamilton 
was burned, and more than of his sufferings did I 
think of the infatuation of his enemies, to kindle 
on their most conspicuous height that fiery cross 
of the gospel, to send the news of Reformation 
over -the land. 

Here also are the ruins of the great Romish 
houses ; better in that they are ruins, although, as 



240 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

such, I could have wished them more completely 
preserved. To be reverenced for its own sake is 
art, and its highest ends are attained when it 
recognizes its affinities with faith ; but where it 
obtrudes itself in the way of the truth and sim- 
plicity of the Gospel, it usurps a place where it 
degrades the human mind, and defeats its own 
proper ends. The true art-feeling is extinguished 
when works of art become idolatrous. For the 
interest of art, as well as of religion, it is better 
they should be separate. Greek art reached its 
superiority only when it shook off its bondage to 
the temple, and reversing the order, led the temple 
in its fetters, and determined by its own laws the 
Greek ideals of Deity. Italian art was fast rising 
to a similar triumph over Romanism, when the 
revival of evangelical religion interposed. 

As to the " Dingin' doun of the Cathedral," as 
sung by Prof Tennant, it may have been uncalled 
for ; the destruction of a beautiful building is much 
to be regretted, and examples prove that it might 
have been converted to a truer worship ; as that 
of Zurich was by Zwingle, and that of Geneva by 
Calvin. But if that conversion was impractica- 
ble, and if there was otherwise church accommo- 



DINGIN' DO UN OF THE CATHEDRAL. 24 1 

dation enough for the population of the little town 
of St. Andrews, and if the choice lay between the 
"Dingin' doun of the Cathedral," and the continu- 
ation of the abuses practiced in it, no right-minded 
man would hesitate to choose the former. How- 
ever great the sacrifice, however much to be 
deprecated as a matter of taste, if indispensable 
to sound morals and Gospel truth, let it go. He 
must be a hardy controversialist who will think 
of defending the practices which this old cathedral 
and its monastic adjuncts covered in the sixteenth 
century. Utterly uncalled for by the demands of 
church accommodation, abbey and monasteries 
alike answered no purpose but to harbor a profit- 
less set of loungers, who were assembled here 
merely because there were houses and endowments 
to keep them. All the buildings needed for wor- 
ship and for education were retained uninjured. 
Moreover, had not that gang of idle and intol- 
lerant monks, with the Archbishop at their head, 
abundantly provoked the act of tearing down their 
nest } Had not the immorality of some of them, 
even of the Archbishops, been a scandal, and had 
they not burned to death some of the best and 
most beloved of its people in the streets of St. 



242 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCO TLAND. 

Andrews ? The really good men among them 
were subsequently better employed as pastors and 
teachers. The earnest well-meaning people had 
more reason on their side than we, who now-a-days 
at our ease would like to have such monuments 
of art to look at, are willing to allow them. 

As to the images, and other objects of idola- 
trous worship, some of them may have been 
worthy of preservation as works of art, and some 
not. Judging from the majority of such things to 
be seen in Romish countries now, it may be pre- 
sumed that most of them belonged to the latter 
class. If half the Madonnas, nine-tenths of the 
St. Sebastians, and all the naked slanders on the 
Saviour were consigned to the fate of this old 
abbey, future travellers would have something to 
be profoundly thankful for. 

It was in the nature of the interests at stake 
that the Reformation should not be favorable to 
art, because art had submitted to become the pan- 
der to idolatry ; and that artists, as a class, should 
hate the Reformation ; for it is to be expected 
that the preaching of Paul will provoke the wrath 
of Demetrius. Yet on both sides there are con- 
spicuous exceptions ; and that the Reformation 



ART AND RELIGION. 243 

cause is not adverse to art, in its proper sphere, is 
fully proved by the subsequent history of both. 
If Protestant art has not yet accumulated works 
to an equal number with the Catholic, her freedom 
and variety are greater, and her truth to philoso- 
phy and fact of nature incomparably superior. 
Art, in fact, never enjoyed true freedom, never 
was allowed to take unbiasedl5^ her own way, and 
work with an eye single to her own aims, until 
liberated by the recent and fully pronounced 
Protestant spirit. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DUNFERMLINE — TOMB OF THE BRUCE — SIR 
PATRICK SPENS — THE HISTORICAL THEME OF 
THAT BALLAD — BALLAD RECITATION— ORIGIN 
OF SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS — SCOTTISH 
LOVE OF MUSIC. 

[UNFERMLINE, from its elevated site, 
looks down upon a far extent of land 
and sea, of great variety, especially to 
the south, southwest and east, away 
beyond the Forth, commanding a 
view of Edinburgh, at the distance of 
sixteen miles, and widely over the 
rich and diversified country of the Lothians. The 
palace, now in ruins, was once the sumptuous resi- 
dence of Kings, especially from Malcolm Cean 
More to Alexander III. And the abbey of Dun- 
fermline was the burial place of King Robert 
Bruce, as we learn from Barbour : 




TOMB OF THE BRUCE. 245 

"They haiff had him to Dunferlyne, 
And him solemnly yirded syne, 
In a fair tomb into the quire ; 
Bishops and prelats that were there 
Assolizied him, when the service 
Was done, as they best could devise ; 
And syne, upon the other day. 
Sorry and wo they went their way." 

■" In digging for the foundation of the new parish 
church, in February, 1818, the tomb of Robert 
Bruce was discovered, and his skeleton found 
wrapt in lead. On a subsequent day, the tomb 
was again opened, in presence of the Barons 
of Exchequer, several literary gentlemen from 
Edinburgh, the magistrates of the town, and 
neighboring gentry. A cast of the skull hav- 
ing been taken, the stone coffin, in which the 
remains lay, was filled with melted pitch ; it was 
then built over with mason work, and the pulpit 
of the new church now marks the spot where all 
that remains on earth of the patriotic warrior is 
deposited." 

At Dunfermline did Robert Henryson, one of 
the best poets of the fifteenth century, earn his 
living by the humble but useful occupation of 
a schoolmaster. And perhaps the author of the 
grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, whoever 



246 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

he was, may have Hved here ; and that itself, 
could it be proved, would be no trifling honor for 
even the old palatial city. 

♦' The King sat in Dunfermline town, 
Drinking the bluid-red wine. 
* O where can I get a skeely skipper 
To sail this new ship of mine ? ' 

Then up and spake an eldern Knight, 

Sat at the King's right knee : 
'Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor 

That ever sailed the sea.' 

Our King has written a braid letter, 

And sealed it with his hand, 
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, 

Was walking on the strand. 

' To Noroway, to Noroway, 

To Noroway, o'er the faem, 
The King's daughter of Noroway, 

'Tis thou maun bring her hame.' " 

Down at Aberdour, a port for Dunfermline, 
on the north side of the Firth of Forth, Sir Patrick, 
it seems, "was walking on the strand," unforseeing 
the honor which awaited him — not so much in 
any commission from the King, as in becoming 
the hero of a deathless poem, when that message 
reached him, 

" To send him out at that time o' the year, 
To sail upon the sea." 



SIR PA TRICK SPENS. 247 

The good and loyal sailor knew his danger, but 
when remonstrance failed touching the wisdom of 
the order, shrunk not from encountering it in the 
execution of his duty. 

" Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet, 
Our ship must sail the faem ; 
The King's daughter of Noroway, 
'Tis we maun bring her hame." 

But it seems they did not bring her hame, if by 
that is meant the bringing of a Norwegian Prin- 
cess to Scotland. For the Scottish and Norwegian 
nobility quarrelled, and Sir Patrick prematurely 
ordered return. 

" Make ready, make ready, my merry men a', 
Our gude ship sails the morn. 
Now, ever alake ! my master dear, 
I fear a deadly storm ! 

I saw the new moon late yestreen, 

Wi' the auld moon in her arm ; 
And if we gang to sea, master, 

I fear we'll come to harm." 

His return from "Noroway" was not to triumph 
over the danger as his outgoing voyage had done. 

"Half owre, half owre to Aberdour, 
'Tis fifty fathom deep. 
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, 
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet." 



248 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

In re-reading this "grand old ballad," suggested 
by the locality, I remark an inconsistency between 
its substantial meaning and some of its words. 
Sir Patrick's commission is to go to Norway, and 
bring the King's daughter of that country to 
Scotland ; but the substance of the tale has 
nothing in it of such a transaction, and looks in 
another way. Sir Patrick's outward voyage was 
entirely successful. There is no intimation that 
he failed to do his duty. But he did not receive 
the King's daughter of Norway on board his ship. 
There is no mention that she was either applied 
for, or refused. And in the complete loss of the 
ship, crew and passengers there is no mention of 
the Princess. Assuredly the poet did not think of 
her being there. It seems that from Norway there 
was no Princess expected ; and no Princess sailed. 

The offensive language of the Norwegian lords 
seems to apply to the dower of a Queen who has 
come to them, which dower is still in the hands of 
the Scottish lords, and which, instead of handing 
over, as they ought, they are charged with spending 
for their own use. 

Sir Patrick leaves Norway at the end of two 
weeks, as if his business were done, and he has 
only to return home with his Scots lords. 



SIR PA TRICK SPENS. 240 

The whole substance of the ballad is of a Queen 
taken to Norway, with a sum of money for her 
outfit, of a speedy and uneventful voyage out, in 
which nothing befalls her ; but her escort quarrel 
with the Norwegian lords, leave abruptly, and on 
their way home are lost at sea. 

If we conceive that the poet wrote. 

To Noroway, to Noroway, 

To Noroway, o'er the faem, 
The King's daughter, to Noroway 

'Tis thou maun take her hame, 

we shall find the language and substance of the 
poem entirely consistent. So slight a change was 
easily made in a long course of transmission by 
memory. 

As to its historical theme, there is no bringing 
of a Norwegian Princess to Scotland on record 
which corresponds to this. On the other hand it 
is recorded by Fordun that in 128 1, Margaret, 
daughter of Alexander III, King of Scotland, was 
betrothed to Eric, King of Norway, and in the 
month of August of that year left Scotland accom- 
panied by a noble escort, and upon arriving in 
Norway, was received by the King with the honors 
becoming her rank, and crowned by the archbishop 



250 ^^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

of that kingdom. After the celebration of the 
nuptials, the nobles of her escort set sail on their 
return home, but were lost at sea. 

What the poet had in mind, was the daughter 
of a King of Scotland, to be taken home to her 
husband in Norway, the duty performed by Sir 
Patrick Spens, who perished at sea, with the 
returning escort. 

I had already written the above, in accordance 
with Motherwell's opinion of the historical event, 
when I fell in, for the first time, with Aytoun's 
"Ballads of Scotland," in which I find precisely 
the emendation here proposed, introduced into the 
text. It is not necessary to assume that the 
poem is as ancient as its subject, nor that it has 
been recited from age to age in exactly the same 
diction in which it was composed. 

Most of the Scottish ballad poetry now in print 
has been collected from the recitation of unedu- 
cated persons, having enjoyed a previous state of 
unembodied existence in the memory of those who 
remembered it. Nor are the printed volumes 
exhaustive of all the poetry thus produced in 
Scotland. Of course, much of it, printed or un- 
printed, is of little value, but I am also impressed 



BALLAD RECLTATLOM. 



251 



with the beh'ef that some pieces which have never 
seen a bodily form are quite as good as many that 
have met with favor in books. In boyhood, I 
used to spend weeks, from time, to time, in the 
family of an aged but still active and laborious 
shepherd, who lived high up among the mountains 
of Minnigaff. His house was fourteen miles away 
from the nearest town, and neighbors were few 
and far apart. But the longest winter evenings 
were never tedious nor lonely to us children. 
The storms might roar, as they often did, wildly 
through the mountain gorges, and around our 
firmly built stone cot ; it gave us only the keener 
sense of comfort, as we gathered around the 
blazing peat fire to listen to uncle John. Seated 
in his arm chair, and knitting his stocking, an 
occupation with which, in those days, a shepherd's 
fingers were always busy, when not more impera- 
tively employed, old John Finlay would entertain 
us with the recitation of long narrative poems, 
some of them occupying each a whole evening. 
With such abundance was his memory furnished, 
that although we sometimes asked the repetition 
of one, yet he so often brought out new, I never 
felt as if he had exhausted his store. His wife 



252 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

also had her supply of that material of entertain- 
ment, but not the same productions. Two or 
three of her ballads I have seen in printed collec- 
tions, but of those recited by her husband not one 
that I have been able to identify. Some of them 
were old, and some were composed by persons 
whom he had known, at one time or another. He 
usually recited in a sort of tune, with his head 
erect, and his eyes closed or looking straight for- 
wards over our heads, if not looking at his knitting. 
In some instances after finishing, he told us who 
composed the ballad, and when. They were 
persons who had died long ago; of one I remember 
he said that he had gone to America. Some of 
the subjects were native to that part of the country. 
One very long poem, which enlisted our breathless 
attention, was of a fox hunt, over the hills and 
through the glens with which we were partly 
acquainted. Being only a child of about nine 
years of age I could form little estimate of the 
literary merit of the poems, and such recitations 
were not new to me, yet I was astonished at uncle 
John's apparently inexhaustible treasure of ballad 
lore. 

In subsequent years, when Homer had his 



ORIGIN OF POPULAR BALLADS. 253 

place of supremacy in my esteem, the theory of 
Wolf both my reason and taste, on some points 
rejected ; but on that of retaining long narrative 
poems in memory for recitation I had no difficulty. 
For the accepting of all that was necessary on 
that head, I had been fully prepared in the shep- 
herd's cot on the sides of Mount Merrick. 

Touching the origin of such poems in Scotland, 
I believe that most of them are the production 
of plain country people ; that they were composed 
without writing, and retained in memory and 
recited by their composers. Other persons learned 
them by hearing, and to interest other people to 
get them by memory was their success. Persons 
who had a taste for that literature by ear were not 
uncommon among my acquaintances of early 
days. Nor were they always scrupulous about 
reciting exactly as they had learned, but exercised 
freedom in altering where they thought they could 
improve ; and perhaps substituted other words 
where memory failed. 

Most commonly the poems thus composed 
were soon forgotten. In other cases care was 
taken to commit them to the custody of letters. 
An elderly lady in the village of Minnigaff one 



254 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

time showed me a large manuscript volume of 
poems composed by one of her sons, John Clyment, 
who had, long before, died at an early age. He 
was an ordinarily educated lad. But the volume 
was written in a clear and elegant hand. The 
pieces which it contained were songs, ballads and 
dramatic tales. Upon my mind their effect was 
attractive and gratifying, and especially I remem- 
ber that their versification and imagery were, to 
my conception, exceedingly beautiful, with a tinge 
of originality, evincing the same thinker and habit 
of thinking throughout. I was grieved beyond 
measure to learn, a good while afterwards, that 
the volume was from thoughtlessness or accident 
destroyed by fire. 

Scholars have no doubt added something to 
this branch of the national literature ; but it is 
remarkable that very {^\n genuinely old Scottish 
ballads can be referred to any known name. I 
believe that they are, in all their characteristics 
and their mass, the growth of the popular mind. 

The corresponding Scottish taste for music is 
well known. Its origin has been referred to one 
or another great musician, whose style, it is 
thought, succeeded in obtaining popularity. The 



SCOTTISH LOVE OF MUSIC. 255 

conjectural cause is absurdly inadequate to the 
effect. Scottish music has its distinctive Scottish 
character, and bears every mark of being the natural 
fruit of the national taste, taken up and cultivated, 
but not created by the hand of learned art. 

At Burntisland, where the Firth of Forth is five 
miles wide, we arrived as it was darkening towards 
night. A storm was mustering, black threatening 
clouds covered the sky, the wind was blowing 
cold and fiercely, and the sea, already running 
high, was breaking in long white ridges. A ferry- 
man of olden time would certainly have declined to 

"Cross the stormy Firth to-day." 

But steam and iron have caused a large class of 
such dangers to disappear. The angry gale pelted 
our boat with waves as hard as if they had been 
stones, tossed her high and low, and screamed 
through her cordage like furies. It was not rain- 
ing, but the air was damp and cold. It was dismal 
weather, but nobody paid any attention to it, for 
no sooner had we left the wharf than the sound 
of music was heard from the forward deck. A 
Highland piper in full Highland costume, with 
great zeal was performing 

"Jigs, strathspeys and reels," 



2q6 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Putting 

"Life and mettle in the heels " 

of a party of young men, who seemed to be calling 
out their own figures, if I judged rightly from cer- 
tain ejaculations uttered sharply in the midst of 
much laughing. 

" The mirth and fun grew fast and furious." 

The piper himself finally joined the dance, and 
** loud and louder blew," while he capered round 
with the rest, until all broke down in a roar of 
mirth. 

When the laughter had ceased, the sound of 
softer music was heard to come from the other 
end — that is, the cabin end of the boat. They 
listened in silence for a few moments, and then 
one after another softly moved off in that direction. 
The piper tucked his bagpipes under his arm and 
went with them. Soon all were assembled in quiet 
attention around a little group of gentlemanly- 
looking men, who, with the accompaniment of a 
melodeon, were singing Scottish songs, " Bonny 
Scotland," "Annie Laurie," "Within a mile of 
Edinboro' Town," and so on. They were listened 
to by all the passengers who were to be seen on 
board, and without interruption, except when 



SCO TTISH LOVE OF MUSIC, 257 

some voice, in a low tone, would suggest another 
favorite melody. And there, among the listeners, 
was our fellow traveler on Loch Linnhe, the Hon. 
Robert Lowe, whom I had not seen since our party 
broke up at Inverness, standing near the singers, 
evidently enjoying the performance. I never saw 
so promiscuous a company so completely controlled 
into silence by sweet music, the boisterous party 
of the previous dance as completely as the rest. 
The gale was forgotten, the pitching of the boat 
unheeded, and we landed at Granton unexpectedly 
soon. 



R 



CHAPTER XIX. 

LINLITHGO W — FALKIRK — STIRLING — STIRLING 
CASTLE — GREYFRIARS CHURCH— THE CEME- 
TERY — VIEW FROM THE CASTLE — BATTLE OF 
STIRLING — WALLACE AS A GENERAL — BAN- 
NOCKBURN — RESEMBLANCE TO WATERLOO. 

N many places of Scotland, travelling by 
rail seems almost a desecration : not 
because facility of movement is unpoet- 
ical, nor because the railway has not a 
poetry of its own ; but because it is 
altogether of the present time, and its 
commonplace details occupy our ordi- 
nary thinking about it. In some historical coun- 
tries, those details produce no sense of incongruity. 
But when ideas of certain places have been woven 
into fictitious historical description, and, through 
that medium, taken their place in the imagination, 
as part of some beautiful fabric having its relations 




LINLITHGOW. 259 

entirely with works of the mind, the transition is 
bewildering when the real objects with their com- 
monplace adjuncts are suddenly brought before us. 
The long cherished fancy picture is defaced by 
having another painted over it, with an effect not 
unlike the confusion which sometimes intervenes 
between successive pictures with the magic lantern. 
The natural scene may be, in itself, as noble or as 
beautiful as the fancy had conceived, and in favor- 
able circumstances may give as much, or more 
pleasure, but the mind needs time to adjust itself 
to the change, as the eye to new light. And 
when the old beloved structure of fancy's own 
building has to be demolished by acquaintance 
with the true original, one would rather dissolve 
it with a respectful deliberation, than have it 
brought down about his ears with one heartrending 
crash by the call of the conductor. Think of the 
sacrilegious familiarity of shouting out, in the ordi- 
nary railroad tone," Bannockburn station ! All out 
for Bannockburn ! " A certain earthward-tending 
change passes through the mind in the first per- 
ception that such places are realities. Of course, 
the reader of history knew all along that they 
were. But in his thinking they were realities 



26o ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

only as touching great events. The change, 
upon seeing them, is that they are instantly 
connected with commonplace. With such feel- 
ing- did I hear the names of the railroad stations 
for Linlithgow, Falkirk and Stirling ; all con- 
nected with great events in the history of 
Scotland, and all their greater events sunk deep 
into the past, and covered with the ivy of fiction, 
in verse and prose. 

The old palace of Linlithgow, a favorite resi- 
dence of the Jameses, fourth and fifth, the delight 
of Queen Mary of Guise, and the birthplace of her 
daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, cheerful in itself, 
and beautiful in situation, is connected with more 
outdoor joyousness, and less of tragedy than any 
other old royal residence in Scotland, as expressed 
in the Tale of Sir David Lindesay : 

•' Of all the palaces so fair, 

Built for the royal dwelling 
In Scotland, far beyond compare 

Linlithgow is excelling ; 
And in its park in jovial June, 
How sweet the' merry linnets tune, 

How blithe the blackbird's lay ! 
The wild-buck bells from the ferny brake, 
The coot dives merry on the lake, 
The saddest heart might pleasure take 
To see all nature gay." 



FALKIRK. 261 

Falkirk, the scene of two momentous battles, 
the first coming to us in the richest poetic coloring 
of the Minstrel's Wallace ; and the second as 
bound up with the chorus of Jacobite songs. 

From the Firth of Foith westward extends a 
broad plain half across the kingdom, and deep into 
the heart of the mountains. Through its length 
winds the river Forth, doubling upon itself with 
such fantastic windings as to appear from some 
points like a row of lakes. The width of the plain 
increases towards the east. In its midst on the 
south side of the river rises a lofty ridge of basaltic 
rock, in the form of a wedge, or presenting the 
outlines of an acute angled triangle, resting upon 
one of its longer sides, and at its highest point 
terminating in an abrupt descent, almost perpen- 
dicular. From the face of the precipice, which 
looks up the valley of the Forth, the elevation 
diminishes regularly to the east, sloping down to 
the plain. On this ridge, and against its eastern 
base, leans the town of Stirling, another Edin- 
burgh on a smaller scale. But the western end 
of the hill is broader than that of Edinburgh, and 
consists of three summits of different elevation. 
On the middle and highest stands the castle. The 



262 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

northern is unoccupied, except by associations 
with some momentous events in early history. 
There were illustrious criminals sometimes exe- 
cuted ; as, in the beginning of the reign of James 
I., the Duke of Albany and his two sons ; and 
there did the assassins of the same monarch suffer 
the penalty of their crime. 

The castle was a place of great strength 
in mediaeval warfare, — an acropolis inaccessible. 
Within the fortifications arc the buildings of a 
palace, a parliament house and a royal chapel. 
They are arranged in two quadrangles ; and at 
the western extremity of the upper is the building 
in which James II. slew the Earl Douglas ; an act 
reflecting dishonor upon the monarch, and yet the 
one which saved his crown. The elder house of 
Douglas never recovered from the effect of that 
blow. 

Between the castle and the south side hill 
there is a little valley, where, in other days, tour- 
naments and other feats of chivalry were exhibited ; 
and on the hill beyond, the ladies of the court 
assembled to enjoy the entertainment. Both 
are now included within the bounds of the 
Old Greyfriar's Churchyard. Of the knights and 



THE CEMETERY. 263 

lords and kings hardly a vestige remains ; but 
monuments are there of Reformers and Covenant- 
ers, of men who labored in or suffered for the faith 
in Christ. That old church on the hill-side has 
echoed to the chants of Romish monks, has seen 
them swept from their place, and inclosed the 
assemblies which hung upon the words of the 
Reformers. There was King James the VI. bap- 
tized, and there, after his mother's abdication, was 
he, at one year and one month old, crowned King 
of Scotland, and Knox preached his coronation 
sermon. It is now the East and West Churches, 
and accommodates two congregations. 

The churchyard is of greatly diversified surface, 
and contains the tombs of a number of eminent 
historical persons. The decorations evince a dis- 
position to pay special honor to memories con- 
nected with the Reformation and the Covenant. 
And with good reason do Scotsmen honor the 
heroes of their church freedom. Without it they 
would never have been what they are. It was 
their firm and intelligent resistance of an obtruded 
religion which put the last hand to their national 
independence. Even had the imposed religion 
been better than it was, it would have been their 



264 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

duty to shake it off. The very sense of having" to 
worship according to government order, and at 
variance with their convictions, would have bred 
them to hypocritical subserviency. The world 
may say what it likes about Scotland's choice in a 
religion ; one thing cannot be denied, that she did 
choose it, because her children firmly believed in 
it, defended it by word and pen, by sword and 
suffering, by privation and death. They believe 
in it still, and honor its heroes and martyrs. And 
that honest faith, manfully adhered to, has made 
them a nation of earnest men, self-reliant, and 
God-fearing. 

Scotland has passed through three periods of 
fiery trial, in any one of which had her people suc- 
cumbed, much that is best in their character would 
never have seen the light. First was the resist- 
ance of English domination, which resulted in a 
profound sense of civil freedom ; the second was 
the Reformation, whereby in the place of a super- 
stition, the nation was supplied with education and 
a free gospel ; and the third was the attempt to 
domineer over the conscience, and make faith the 
subject of the civil power. 

From the ramparts of Stirling Castle adjoining 



VIEW FROM STIRLING CASTLE. 265 

to, and west of the Douglas room, the view is 
singularly extensive and beautiful. On the east, 
down the plain of the Forth, beginning with the 
old Abbey of Cambus-Kenneth, in one of the 
links of the river among the trees, it stretches 
away beyond Alloa, into the dim distance, where 
may be faintly discerned some of the heights about 
Edinburgh. In that direction, the long grassy 
ridge of the Ochils bounds the plain on the north, 
with the town of Alloa on a slightly elevated level 
at its base. Thence all along the northern side of 
the plain runs the continuation of that mountain 
embankment westward, until it merges in the 
central highlands. A similar, but not so sharply 
defined embankment bounds the plain on the 
south. But such is the height of our point of 
view, that the eye ranges far over both, to the 
country beyond ; especially on the northern side, 
where the mountains rise, summit beyond summit 
successively higher to a greater distance ; and the 
most celebrated in song, Uam Var, Ben Leddy, 
Ben Voirlich, Ben Venue, and Ben Lomond, stand 
out clear along the northern and western horizon. 
At a fine point of view on the ramparts, towards 
the Douglas room, I observed on the coping stone 



266 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

of the wall the letters '*M. R., 1566," a memorial 
of the too celebrated Queen Mary. Twenty-five 
or thirty steps further to the west, at the extreme 
angle, appears a similar memorial of a visit from 
the Queen now upon the throne. 

Directly north from Stirling, and at a short 
distance across the river there is a rival hill, but 
of less elevation, where stands the monument to 
the memory of Sir William Wallace. On that hill 
he disposed his army before the battle of Stirling, 
and from it rushed down upon the divided army of 
Surrey ; and on the meadow between it and the 
river did the battle occur. To the history of Scot- 
land no more momentous engagement ever took 
place. Without it, that of Bannockburn would 
have been impossible. Its effect upon the people 
of Scotland was like life from the grave, and was 
never forgotten. Although, just before, to all 
appearance, crushed into submission, they now felt 
that even in such a state they were not hopeless, 
and at the worst, by putting forth their strength 
could match their enemy. In subsequent similar 
misfortune, they thought of Wallace and the bat- 
tle of Stirling, took heart, and nerved themselves 
for another trial. The sturdy ungainliness of that 



WALLACE AS A GENERAL. 26/ 

monument is to my eye a prouder expression than 
a more elegant structure would be. 

Foreigners smile at our warmth for the name 
of Wallace. The smile is due, in many instances, 
to inadequate estimation of the facts. No man 
ever deserved more of his country than that 
devoted patriot ; and no such hero, in his life-time, 
ever received less from it. Popular stories about 
him have brought down his reputation to the 
measure of popular ideas. He has been repre- 
sented as a giant, who carried .victory everywhere 
before him by the force of a strong arm and a 
long sword. The liberator of his country has been 
transformed by tradition into a mere swordsman. 
It may be beyond dispute that he possessed a 
powerful bodily frame, and made the most of that 
advantage towards the effecting of his ends, and 
it went far in warfare without firearms ; but what 
most impresses the reflecting reader of the life of 
Wallace and of Scottish history in his time is his 
intellectual calibre as a strategist and leader. 

Poetry has attempted to embellish his exploits 
with fiction ; but all her inventions are common- 
place as compared with the actual facts. That 
King Edward I. of England, in 1296, subdued 



268 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Scotland, carried off the King and many of the 
nobility prisoners, that he garrisoned all its strong 
places, and set up his own government over it, 
which not a single nobleman made a motion to 
resist, and having settled all to his own satisfac- 
tion, on the last day of August, 1296, returned to 
England ; that a man without the prestige of 
nobility, and with only two or three followers at 
first, succeeded in taking one stronghold after 
another out of the hands of the English King, in 
raising an army and defeating his troops in the 
field, and by the eleventh of September, 1297, had 
overturned all his government in Scotland, and 
swept the last of his forces over the border ; that 
the same person had meanwhile defeated a for- 
midable invasion from Ireland into the West High- 
lands, and mollified the contentions of jealous 
nobility among his own countrymen, are facts 
which belong as truly to the history of England 
as to that of Scotland, and are equally indubitable 
from either side. In comparison with that work 
of just one year and eleven days, standing as bald 
as an enemy may choose to put it, what are all 
the puny fictions about gigantic stature, and force 
of blow, and the ghost of Fawdon ? The indis- 



BANNOCKBURN. 269 

putable facts are such as to brand the attempt to 
embellish them with fiction as a feeble audacity. 
Sir William Wallace may have been, most likely 
was, of heroic streng^th and stature ; but the great 
exploit of his life was head-work. 

From Stirling Castle on the south side, one 
looks down on the field of Bannockburn, not more 
than two miles distant. A fair scene of verdant 
fields bordered by woods it seems from this point. 
The lower town of Stirling, continued by the 
village of St. Ninian's, extends almost close to it. 
Having filled my mind with the splendid view from 
the battlements of the castle, I pursued my way to 
Bannockburn — as charming a walk as one could 
take on a balmy autumn morning — and soon stood 
by the Borestone (Boredstone), where the stand- 
ard of the Bruce floated on the day of the battle. 
It is by the side of the public road, and near it 
is erected a flag pole, to mark the spot for dis- 
tant observation. It is the highest point of the 
position occupied by the Scottish army. The 
Borestone is now covered by an iron grating, to 
protect what remains of it from the fatal admira- 
tion of relic hunters, those Vandals of civilization, 
whom neither taste nor honesty move, and who, 



2^0 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

worse than common thieves, destroy or purloin 
what no wealth or skill can ever restore. 

At first sight, I was struck with the similarity 
of the ground to that of Waterloo, and the more 
I observed, the more did the resemblance grow 
upon me. The strategy also was similar. Edward 
II. was not a Napoleon, but his army, one of the 
finest and best equipped that ever marched out 
of England, made up of brave men, and com- 
manded by as able officers as ever served in the 
field, was more numerous than that of the French 
at Waterloo. Between the military characters of 
Bruce and Wellington the resemblance is suffi- 
cient to justify comparison. Here, as at Waterloo, 
the battle ground consists of two parallel ridges, 
separated by a valley about a mile wide, from the 
height on one side to that on the other, and 
partly marshy in the bottom. At Bannockburn, 
the depth of the valley is greater than at Waterloo. 
And yet, before one side of the latter was stripped 
to make the stupendous Belgium mound, that 
difference was not so great. 

A similar necessity constrained the combat- 
ants. Stirling Castle must be relieved by a given 
day, or all was lost for the English garrison, which 



BRUCE AS A GENERAL. 271 

Still held it. To prevent that relief was the single 
aim of the Scottish King. Wellington chose his 
ground to protect Brussels ; a more urgent neces- 
sity rested upon Bruce to protect Stirling ; and 
that he could not, at a distance. The place was 
as much predestined as the aim. And equally 
determinate was the attitude of the parties 
towards each other. To the Scottish army it 
was enough to resist. One day's endurance might 
settle the matter for Stirling. Upon the English 
rested the burden of attack. For them to delay 
was to lose the immediate object of the campaign. 
The Scots, accordingly, maintained their position 
along the crest of the rising ground, on the north 
side oi the valley, directly between Stirling and the 
English army which occupied the hill on the other 
side. To relieve Stirling the English must break 
through the Scottish army, or outflank it. The 
latter was tried first, but failed. The second 
became imperative. But Bruce had arrayed his 
infantry in groups with their spears disposed to 
encounter attack on all sides, like Wellington's 
squares, at Waterloo. Edward brought up his 
bowmen — his artillery — to break those solid 
groups, and prepare for his main attack. A 



2J2 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

movement of Bruce's cavalry on their flank scat- 
tered the bowmen. The English cavalry charge 
upon the groups of spearmen was, notwithstanding, 
desperate and persistent. To read of it sounds 
like reading of the charge of Napoleon's heavy 
cavalry upon Wellington's squares ; exceedingly 
similar in the prolonged fury of attack and the half 
ruinous, but successful repulse. Although there 
were no Prussians to come to the support of Bruce 
in the crisis of conflict, yet here also the similarity 
holds. For just at the point of their wavering 
courage, the English saw what they thought a new 
army coming down from the western hills upon 
their flank, and losing heart betook themselves to 
scattered flight, in such a way as Englishmen 
have seldom fled. 

What moved the host of camp followers to 
come over the Gillies' Hill, in array like an advanc- 
ing army, as they did, has been a matter of various 
conjecture. It does not seem to me very difficult. 
It belonged to the strategy of the day ; and the 
head which planned the rest was the one to put 
that also in its place. The Scottish army at 
Bannockburn, like Wellington's at Waterloo, never 
moved from their vantage ground until their ene- 



BANNOCKBURN AND WATERLOO. 273 

mies were breaking into disorder. Had they been 
allowed to behave themselves, as Buchanan says 
they did, they would have been destroyed, as sure 
as fate. Never was a Scottish army better handled 
than that of Bruce at Bannockburn, nor British 
courage held in more prudent control than at 
Waterloo. 



CHAPTER XX. 

KING JAMES V. — HIS PATRONAGE OF LETTERS- 
FRIEND OF THE COMMONS — EXCURSIONS AMONG 
THEM — LADY OF TPIE LAKE — ITS SCENERY — 
LOCH LOMOND — DUMBARTON — CONCLUSION. 

jUDEMAN of Ballangeich," "Knight 
of Snowdown," "James Fitz-James," 
what reader of Scottish poetry could 
leave Stirling Castle without a 
thought of thee, by whatever title 
known, the favorite of poetical 
tradition, "The Commons' King, 
King James." Though not the fruit of his pat- 
ronage — it could not in so brief a life — it was in 
the exercise of it, that the court of King James 
was adorned by an unusual constellation of 
genius. There might be found, at one time and 
another, William Dunbar, then in his later 
years, George Buchanan in his buoyant youth, 




KING JAMES V. 2/5 

John Bellenden, David Lindsay, Gavin Douglas, 
James Inglis, and others of inferior renown, 
already mentioned in connection with their 
residences elsewhere, but whom the King 
delighted to honor, and some of whom received 
remuneration from him for works executed to his 
order. And if he really was the author of the 
songs attributed to him, he must have possessed 
no common degree of the poetic gift himself. 
Later masters of the art have added to the eclat 
of that reputation. 

Hard was the task assigned to James V., to 
govern a powerful, turbulent, and self-willed nobil- 
ity, who, during a long and feeble regency, had 
been left almost without a check, and been accus- 
tomed to exercise powers of virtual sovereignty 
within their respective domains. That the young 
King encountered some cases difficult to manage, 
and that he sometimes made a mistake, was in the 
nature of things ; and that he was intensely disliked 
by those whom he restrained. But his persistent 
efforts to reduce the local despotisms procured 
him grateful favor with the common people. It 
was a matter in which his cause was theirs, and 
they could look upon him as their leader, and 



276 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

advocate of their interests. That he wished him- 
self to be so considered is phiin. It was his wis- 
dom. His free-and-easy way with his people was 
contrasted with the imperious and haughty air 
which he assumed towards the arrogant nobility. 
And his frequent excursions, in various disguises, 
among the lower classes, made him personally 
acquainted with their way of living, their grievances 
and their opinions. That in such excursions he 
sometimes fell in with adventures less to his credit 
is equally true, and throws a shadow upon his 
character, which not even an admirer must attempt 
to excuse. At the same time one would fain believe 
that Burton's judgment against him in this matter 
is too severe. The education to which he had been 
subjected, and examples ever before his eyes, at 
home and abroad, and in the highest places of 
church and state, were of a nature to belittle the 
turpitude of certain sins. His uncle, the King of 
England ; his step-father, the Earl of Angus ; the 
Archbishop of St. Andrews, and some of the high- 
est clergy were notoriously and openly guilty of 
vices in comparison with which his might be called 
venial ; and even his mother's career was far from 
being a commendable model for imitation. 



KING JAMES V. 2// 

The scandalous lives of many of the clergy, 
their ambition and worldly-mindedness, were objects 
of King James's abhorrence, a feeling intensified by 
the fact that their power constrained him, in some 
cases, to consent to the persecution of persons 
whose opinion of them coincided with his own. 
Others, some of them leading reformers, he pro- 
tected consistently. 

In the vicinity of his various residences, memo- 
rials are still respected of the popular King. About 
Stirling they are numerous. In that place was the 
greater part of his boyhood spent, and from it most 
of his incognito excursions proceeded. Ballan- 
geich was a road up to a private entrance to 
Stirling Castle : and Snowdown was an ancient 
name for that fortress. The " goodman " of a 
house, in the old idiom of both England and Scot- 
land, meant the master, or head of the household. 
So the King might appear as the " Knight of 
Snowdown;" or as the "Goodman of Ballangeich," 
might pass for some plain laird or farmer; under 
which cover he occasionally rambled far away from 
his palace, to see and talk with his people, 
disguising himself to learn of them without 
disguise. 



2/8 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



Upon the well-known fact that King James V. 
was in the habit of making such excursions, Sir 
Walter Scott conceived the plot of his "Lady of 
the Lake." Although that particular adventure is 
entirely fictitious, it truthfully represents the char- 
acter of the King. 

Passing the fashionable summer resort of the 
Bridge of Allan, which nestles cosily under the 
shelter of the hills, about three miles north of Stir- 
ling, I lingered an hour or so at Dumblane, to see 
its cathedral, and think about Robert Leighton, his 
affluent and beautiful meditations, rather than com- 
mentaries, and his painfully unfortunate bishopric 
there ; not without a passing thought of Tanna- 
hill's "Jessie, the Flower of Dumblane," and from 
an elevation near the town, looked down on a part 
of the country over which swept Fitz-James's ride 
from Coilantogle ford. From Dumblane eastward 
about six miles we passed the ruins of Doune Cas- 
tle, where Waverly was imprisoned before his 
removal to Holyrood ; and, up the banks of the 
Teith, penetrated into the scenery of "The Lady 
of the Lake." 

That beautiful poem, with which the public has 
confessed itself captivated by holding as consecrate 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 2/9 

every spot connected with it, is as remarkable for 
its truth to scenery, as to the ethnic character it 
professes to deHneate. King James V. is repre- 
sented as joining in a deer hunt among the wilds 
of Perthshire. He is apparently unknown to his 
fellow huntsmen, for none of them take any notice 
of him, or make any effort to follow, and see 
what befalls him, when he outrides them into the 
Trosachs. Following out the poet's strict local 
accuracy, I am convinced that he conceived of his 
hunting party as starting in the early morning 
from Crieff, and as advancing southwestward into 
Glenartney. For 

"The stag at eve had drunk his fill, 
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, 
And deep his midnight lair had made, 
In lone Glenartney 's hazel shade." 

And . in the next scene, from the poet's point of 
view, which is, of course, that of his stag, the rising 

"Sun his beacon red 
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head." 

But it would be on the eastern side of Benvoirlich 
that the light of the rising sun appeared. And 
when 

"The antlered monarch of the waste 
Sprung from his lieathery couch in haste," 



28o ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

it was "adovvn the dale" that he gazed. His 
enemies were, therefore, on the eastward side of 
BenvoirHch, and coming up Glenartney ; and 
when he fled it was some way in the opposite 
direction to that by which they came. Accord- 
ingly, the poet says oi him that he, 

" Stretching free and far, 
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var." 

Having fatigued his pursuers in that long ascent, 
he paused on the summit to take breath and make 
up his mind about his safest retreat, and decided 
upon 

"The copse wood grey, 
That waved and wept on Loch Achray." 

Then dashing down to the westward through 
Cambusmore, two miles to the north of Callander, 
he crossed the Teith in the Pass of Lenny, and 
pursued the most direct course along the south of 
Benledi, until he had distanced all pursuers except 
the King and his two hounds. For 

"When the Brig of Turk was won, 
The headmost horseman rode alone." 

The strong and fleet animal finally eluded the 
hounds in the waters and tangled thickets of the 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 28 1 

Trosachs, at the same time that Fitz-James's horse 
fell exhausted, and 

" Stretched his stiff limbs to rise no more." 

The topography of that chase is as truthful as an 
itinerary : it can be followed on the maps exactly. 
The tourist coming from the direction of Stir- 
ling, enters upon the enchanted ground at Callan- 
der, and the Pass of Lenny, where on his right 
hand rises 

" Benledi's ridge in air." 

Crossing the river Teith, he passes along the south 
of Benledi, with Coilantogle ford on his left, and 
before him a desert valley extending westward. 
In its bosom expands Loch Venachar, with " Lan- 
eric mead" at its head, and, west of that, Loch 
Achray, with the river which connects them, and 
carries their contributions to the Teith. The 
carriage road passes along the mountain side, 
where the forces of Clan Alpine rose and disap- 
peared so mysteriously, at the signal of Roderick 
Dhu. 

West of Loch Achray, the valley is narrowed 
by the convergence of the mountains, and is finally 
blocked up by the mighty mass of Benvenue. 



282 A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

There, hills, rocks, and tangled thickets, thrown 
together in the wildest confusion, admit no further 
passage, except by a narrow wooded gorge, to the 
northward. It is now thrided by a good carriage 
road ; otherwise is still as wild as before it became 
famous. That gorge, 

"The Trosachs' rugged jaws," 

connects with another valley running westward, 
but on the north of Benvenue, and covered, over 
all its plain, by Loch Katrine. That beautiful 
lake extends, from its charming little bays in the 
heart of the Trosachs, westward to Glengyle 
about ten miles, with a general width of two. 

And where is the Douglas island .^ Near the 
east end of the lake, easily recognized from the 
poet's description; and on the shore, over against it, 
the little bay, with its ''silver strand," where Fitz- 
James first beheld the ''Lady of the Lake." One 
almost expects to see, along that broad sheet of 
water to the west, the fleet of Clan Alpine coming 
down from Glengyle ; and in fancy do see the 

" Plaids and plumage dance and wave," 
And " see the bonnets sink and rise, 
As his tough oar the rower plies. 
See, flashing at each sturdy stroke, 
The wave ascending into smoke ; 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 283 

See the proud pipers on the bow, 
And mark the gaudy streamers How 
From their loud chanters down, and sweep 
The furrowed bosom of the deep." 

Between Callander and this point extends the 
principal scenery of the poem. The action passes 
over it three times ; first, in the chase ; then in 
the course of the fiery cross, which proceeds down 
from the island to the Pass of Lenny, up that pass 
to the north of Benledi, and thence back westward, 
through Strathgartney, to where the messenger 
started ; and, third, in the return of Fitz-James 
from Coir-Uriskin, and his adventure with Roderick 
Dhu. It afterwards returns to the Trosachs, the 
shores of Loch Katrine and the island, in the 
battle scene of ''Deal 'an Diifiic^' and closes at 
Stirling. In thus passing and repassing, the tale 
has tinged every important point with its light, 
and, by the accuracy of local description, vindi- 
cated an almost historical character for its fictions. 
"There," said the stage-driver, pointing with his 
whip to a rugged spot at the entrance of the Tros- 
achs, "there died gallant Grey." 

Landed at Stronalacher, between two and 
three miles from the western extremity of Loch 
Katrine, we strike across the wild moorland, once 



284 



A SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 



the domain of the notorious Rob Roy Macgregor, 
to Inversnaicl, on Loch Lomond ; and launched, in 
a fine steamboat, on that king of Scottish lakes, 
resign ourselves to the fascination of picturesque 
beauty. 

There is nothing of its kind equal to Loch 
Lomond, short of the Alpine lakes of Italy. With 
these, there is enough to provoke comparison. 
As in all other places which I saw, Scotland 
maintains her proper claims, but here ventures too 
near a resemblance to Como. Rapt in the enjoy- 
ment of the tumultuary mob of mountains, and 
glens, and her own beautiful blue waters, I was 
fain to forget Loch Lomond's attempt at sublimity, 
and with some feeling turned my eyes away from 
Ben Lomond, until, in the distance, I could take his 
mass into one view with the multitude of irregular 
summits, which, as a whole, produce the effects 
most proper to my native land. 

By Loch Lomond are the scenes of many a 
celebrated strain. Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, and 
Glenfruin remind us of the boastful war song of 
Clan Alpine : 

"Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glenfruin, 
And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied, 
Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin, 
And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on her side." 



DUMBARTON. 285 

At the head of Leven Water, which issues from 
Loch Lomond, we enter the domains of the ancient 
lords of Lennox, forefathers of the second dynasty 
of Stewart Kings ; but to some of us more inte- 
resting as the native country of Tobias Smollett, 
whose ode to Leven Water rings in our ears. 

Following the Leven down to Dumbarton, on 
the Clyde, our ramble terminates, as it began, 
amid scenes of poetry, of romance and of romantic 
history. Here is a fortress which was at its best in 
days of the old Strathclyde kingdom : here is the 
house where Mary Stuart, in her girlhood, resided 
before her departure to France, and here the rock 
from which the little maiden queen stepped on 
the ship which bore her to that country, destined 
to be the scene of her highest splendor and the 
source of her misfortunes ; and here was the prison 
of William Wallace, the scene of his betrayal ; and 
here also is kept that sword, which, 

"Fit for archangel to wield, 
Was light in his terrible hand." 

It would not be truthful to leave the impression 
that I saw nothing in Scotland save what was 
gratifying ; but the sentiment produced by the 
scenery, as connected with the pleasantest part 



286 ^ SUMMER RAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

of Scottish literature and national character, was 
sustained throughout, and increased to the end. 
As far as that is concerned, my summer ramble, 
though hastily made, was a dream of delight. 
And the pleasure was perhaps the less imperfect 
that I could not remain long enough to see the 
glamour fade way ; and for the same reason, 
instead of exhausting the subject, I have only 
opened it. In closing this hasty sketch, however, 
I feel that less apology is needed for leaving so 
much unsaid, which would go to demonstrate the 
point in view, than for making any proof of some 
things generally admitted. Touching the border 
dales, the West Highlands, the banks of Doon, the 
vicinity of Stirling, and the Trosachs, I have only 
repeated what most readers know, and what has 
been said, in one way or another, a thousand times. 
Nor is it less thoroughly well known that far above 
the natural attractions of the country, it is the 
poetry wherein they are draped which takes mul- 
titudes of tourists yearly to visit those scenes, 
now almost as classic as the Isles of Greece. 

Too long have I misunderstood my countrymen, 
although I ought to have known better. For in 
boyliood, I remember well how I was surrounded 



CONCLUSION. 287 

by singers, among young and old, and the pre- 
vailing love, not so much of music as of songs, and 
singing, and the reciting of poems. But then, I 
thought it was so with all people. And as the 
matter which, in those days, surprised me most in 
my uneducated countrymen, was their liking for 
metaphysical books, I had formed a notion of their 
character accordingly, that they were a hard- 
working, clear-thinking people, with a turn for 
philosophy. I was aware, of course, that a goodly 
number of poets had arisen in Scotland, but 
thought of them as exceptional, and as illumi- 
nating only some places here and there. Of the 
poetic coloring of Scottish life and scenery in 
general I had no conception, until after traversing 
a great part of the country. I am now convinced 
that beneath their dialectic acumen, industry, and 
blunt, plain-spoken way, there lies a genuine 
depth of imagination. 

That poetic covering of Scottish scenery is 
not the work of any one period, but consists of 
many folds, which have been accumulating since 
the dawn of modern literature in the fourteenth 
century — from Thomas of Ercildoune, Barbour, 
and King James I., to George Macdonald, Robert 



288 A SUMMER /GAMBLE IN SCOTLAND. 

Buchanan and Professor Blackie. In that long 
period of time there has been variety of seasons. 
Winter has taken its turn with spring, summer, 
and harvest. The earUest harvest of special fruit- 
fulness was that which spread over the latter part 
of the fourteenth, and early part of the fifteenth 
centuries ; the second, and most abundant of all, 
except the last, was the precursor and companion 
of the Reformation ; the third, inferior, in many 
respects, belonged to the early part of the eight- 
eenth century ; and the fourth began with Burns, 
and continues until now. But beneath and beyond 
the productions of great authors, the country 
abounds in popular songs and ballads, which, from 
the ancient Celtic lays down to those in the modern 
Scottish dialect, seem to have grown up authorless, 
and as spontaneous as the heather. 




Jems oi moUx^}^ mnmonx anir ^isir0m ! 



JhE pENIUS, y/lT AND "JiVlSDOM OF A NaTION ARE DIS- 
COVERED BY THEIR Proverbs." — Lord Bacon. 



RECENTLY PUBLISHED, 

Wifi JProbFris of SroHani. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIVE NOTEg AND A QL033ARY. 

By ALEXANDER HISLOF. 

One vol., i6mo, 367 pp. Cloth, $1.50; cloth extra, gilt edges, $2.00 



J<I0T1CES OF THE (?^ESS. 
From the Scottish American Journal. 

"This is THE LARGEST AND BEST COLLECTION OF SCOTTISH 

Proverbs in existence. The volume possesses the charm of novelty 
c-ombined with humour and satire, and all the other elements that 
make up the choicest fruits of the intellectual life of the people of 
Scotland. The volume might be styled a Collection of the Gems of 
Scottish Wisdom. It deserves a place in every Scottish household 
beside the works of Burns and Scott." 

From the New York Tribune. 

" The voi'ime forms a very complete collection of Scottish Proverbs, 
containing the materials of previous w^orks on the subject, with large 
additions from the writings of Sir Walter Scott, Galt, Hogg, and 
other national sources ; with a Glossary, enabling readers to enjoy 
the contents of the volume without embarrassment." 

From the N'w York O'^server. 

"A collection of some five thousand Scotch sayings, alphabetically 
arranged. Full of the pithy wisdom of the Land o' Cakes, it is wortliy 
a place in every library, and will be eagerly sought after by every one 
interested in Scottish Literature and History." 



Mailed to any address^ posta^t' prepaid, on receipt of the price. 

L. D. I^OBET^TSON, Publisl\er, 

117 Walker Street, Neiv ITork. 



A J^EW pOEM BY A YoUNG AUTHOR. 

LATELY PUBLISHED : 

Jock Craufurt. 

A POEM IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT. 

By JAMES KENNEDY. 

One volume, octavo. Bound in extra cloth. Price $i.oo. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 

"Besides many passages of unquestionable beauty, there is dis- 
played an intimate acquaintance with human nature, as exhibited in 
the class of which the poem entirely treats ; and from these qualities, 
as well as the many pictures of homely Scotch life with which it 
abounds, we will be surprised if the poem does not meet w'ith a certain 
measure of success."— 6'ctf'//^.y/^ American Journal. 

"The description of the maiden-feast is exceedingly well done — 

true to nature We should fancy that Mr. Kennedy will not 

lack encouragement to go on. What he has already done is done 
exceedingly well. The rustic scenes described in the first two cantos 
are particularly fresh and racy, and true to the life." — Dundee 
People^s yournal. 

" The poem has many original features, and the style of expressing 
them is marked by a happy faculty of making apt illustrations and 
comparisons. Jock's adventures are of a lively character, and well 
worth the perusal of lovers of the Scottish dialect, of whatever nationality. 
We bespeak for it a wide circulation." — Pittston Comet. 

" I have Ijeen much pleased with its pictures of humble Scottish 
life. The author handles his Scottish dialect with rare skill, and 
through it there shines many a bit of genuine poetry. There is a 
peculiar charm in the language to me." — Rev. Chas. K. McHarg, 
Coopersto7vn, N. V. 



Sent by mail., postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. Address 

L. D. ROBERTSON, Publisher, 

117 Walker St., New York, 



JUST PUBLISHFA), A FINE EDITIOX OF 
DEAN RAMSAY'S 

REMINISCENCES OF 

^dotti^l} I^ife aqd Cl\ki^kdtef . 

By E. B. RAMSAY, M. A., LL.D., F. R. S. E., 

LATE DEAN OF EDINBURGH. 



One vol., i6mo., 367 pp. Cloth, $1.50 ; cloth extra, gilt edges, $2.00 

TESTIMONIALS OF THE PRESS. 

From the Scottish American Journai. 

"As a book it is intensely amusing, but as a study it shows to 
perfection the inner self of the Scottish people. Scotsmen are prover- 
bial for retaining their national individuality, and it is to such a book 
as this that they will turn for a i^ii/npse of their native land and the 
sound of their tnothcr tongue. Tlie book is well got up, and forms a 
handsome volume, Avhich will be a prized addition to the library of 
every Scottish household." 

From the New York Evening Mail. 

"That most excellent book, which is too well known to need any 
praise from us, since it has become a standard — Dean Ramsay's 
Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, has been re-printed 
from 'the author's latest edition, with portrait, by L. D. Robertson, 
Scottish Publisher, of 117 Walker Street. To sons of Auld Scotia, it 
is a book full of home, and to others, a most interesting record of an 
interesting people." 

From the New York Observer. 

"This is an interesting volume, consisting of historical facts and 
anecdotes of the old Scottish people, of their manners and customs, 
their religious feelings and observances, their domestic habits, lan- 
guage, wit, and humor; a7id being perft^ctly reliable, it will be eagerly 
sought after by Scotsmen and all who are interested in Scottish litera- 
ture. It is neatly printed on tinted paper, and worthy a place in any 
library." 

From the New York Tribune. 

"Although an ecclesiastical dignitary of high position, the author 
was a singularly genial lover of humor, with a taste for personal anec- 
dote, and is often happy in his selection of incidents and recital of 
adventures, in which he manages to awaken the interest of his readers." 



From ihe Working Church. 

"A kind of atmosphere surrounds all books as well as persons, 
and the atmosphere of Scottish Life and Character is such as all 
happy, genial souls delight in. For a country holiday — to be read 
under green trees and sunny skies—or for that restful, self-contented 
hour after dinner, we know of no book so delightful. The book is 
one which will be heartily welcomed not only by 'guid Scots,' but by 
all who have a broad, honest, genial humanity." 

From the Paterson Weekly Guardian. 

" One of the most entertaining books ever written. As a collection 
of anecdotes illustrating the pawky humor and dry wit of the Scottish 
race, this work has no equal, while its value as a record of national 
habits, customs and characteristics which are rapidly passing into 
obiivion, cannot be over-estimated. It should be in the hands of every 
man who first saw the light in the land of Burns and Scott, or derives 
his lineage from Caledonia stern and wild." 

From the Paterson Daily Press. 

" This is a very interesting work. Among the sons and daughters 
of Auld Scotia who have made this land their home, it will find many 
delighted readers. It is an exceedingly enjoyable work." 

From the Newark Daily Advertiser. 

"The object of the writer is to depict a phase of national manners 
which was fast becoming obsolete, and thus contribute something to 
the materials of history by exhibiting social customs and habits of 
thought which at a particular era were characteristic of the Scottish 
race. And in this the author has succeeded admirably. The book 
cannot but prove interesting to many a Scot in this city, for its perusal 
will awaken the memories of 'Auld Langsyne.' " 

From the Pittston Comet. 

"The announcement of a new edition of these Reminiscences of 
this celebrated scholar and author would seem all that is neccessary to 
place a copy in every library that is not already supplied, and especially 
please every Scotsman, who will now be offered the opportunity of 
making an addition to his collection of books, which would be incom- 
plete, no matter how excellent tlie selection, without this truly admira- 
ble work." 

From the Alta California, San Francisco. 

" E. B. Ramsay, late Dean of Edinburgh, writes of his country- 
men with knowledge, care, skill and affection, and has made a pleasant 
book on a good subject." 



Mailed to any address, postage paid, on receipt of the price, by 

L. D. ROBERTSON, Publisher, 

117 Walker Street, New York, 



^ 



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JAN 79; X 

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